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East of the River: Instrumental in Early Music

Jeff Kaliss on November 24, 2014
East of the River

In addition to drawing attention to the recorder as an instrument with not only historical significance but virtuosic potential, Nina Stern and Daphna Mor have excelled as musical pedagogues, teaching children both at home and abroad. They brought both their virtuosity and their educational mission to bear at three Bay Area venues this past weekend, in the company of their East of the River ensemble, touring behind last year’s recording of Levantera.

As experienced in the sublime light of a Sunday afternoon, streaming through the stained glass windows into the interior of the incense-enhanced St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco, the lessons learned were delightful, if not exactly clear or enlightening. Bolstered by the violin of Jesse Kotansky, the kanun zither of Tamer Pinarbasi, and the Arabic percussion of John Hadfield, East of the River was founded by Stern and Mor. Its mission: “explore(s) gems of the medieval European classical repertory together with haunting and virtuosic melodies of traditions to the East.” 

It was the East which seemed on display in this program, though there were just a couple of Western exceptions. Petrone, taken from the mid-14th century English Robertsbridge Codex, is one of the earliest examples of written instrumental counterpoint. Like much of what was presented here, this music was transposed from the original instrumentation (in this case, keyboard) to Stern and Mor’s recorders, with Hadfield backing on the dumbek goblet drum. This invoked the lively and somewhat familiar sound of Renaissance court music, in which these instruments may have figured.

From a similar period came the Ghaetta, an Italian dance set in modes distinctly different from what would later be conventionalized in Western Baroque music and seemingly bearing traces of Middle Eastern influence. The two recorders harmonized in the perfect fourths and fifths which would also fade from Western classical music. Hadfield used the large tar frame drum here, and Pinarbasi worked some nice unisons with Mor’s recorder.

Among the many offerings outside the scope of what we consider Early Music, there was much exotica, including odd meters (Arabic, Bulgarian) and microtones (most obvious on Kotansky’s violin). The range of the instrumentation was itself refreshingly unfamiliar. For the opening Oor Yés Mayr Im, from Medieval Armenia, Mor droned on a shruti box (a sort of miniature harmonium) under Stern’s single-reed chalumeau, an ancestor of the clarinet (on which Stern also performs, in classical contexts). Hadfield’s kit included a riq (Egyptian tambourine) and a smaller frame drum. Stern, who presented a brief talk about the instruments after intermission, credited the Turkish-born Pinarbasi with developing an innovative 10-finger approach to the kanun, and said he’s been imitated world-wide.

Pinarbasi’s solos throughout the program were often breathtakingly rapid and accurate and always exciting. His level of skill was shared by all five instrumentalists, as was the visible enthusiasm in music-making. Hadfield drew squealing tones from his tar by sliding his finger across the head, and percussed the jingles as well as the head of his tambourine. Stern and Mor’s duo work was impressively tight, sometimes involving intricate hocketing. Aside from his microtonal intonation, Kotansky’s departures from Western classical violin conventions included overtones, chording clustered around drones, and spirited embellishments which at times sounded like bluegrass.

But for better or worse, and whether or not intended, there was no particular through-theme in the migration from Armenia to Andalusia to Turkey to Greece to the Balkan countries, or in the chronological wanderings across seven centuries. Likewise, any connection to the development of Western Early Music and later Baroque and classical forms was left implicit, although (perhaps inevitably) intimations of Khachaturian were at times suggested, as were hints of klezmer. The East-West link is no doubt more obvious in some of Mor and Stern’s other enterprises.

The least engaging of the program’s regional pieces sounded like the world music equivalent of smooth jazz (should we dub it Smooth World?), opting for user-friendly showiness over authenticity. Arguably most engaging were the dance-based numbers, including a pair from Greece and the tricky, infectious Bulgarian material which finished the concert in rousing form.

It may be that the San Francisco Early Music Society, which presented this concert, is as eager as are contemporary chamber music advocates to soften their genre definitions and to broaden their mission and maybe their audiences. We’ll have more opportunities to see how this goes down during the Society’s ongoing Sundays at the Jazz Conservatory, where the keynote is improvisation.