Wigmore Hall
James Clarke – 2012-S, for two string quartets (2012, British
premiere)
Alex Mincek – String Quartet
no.3, ‘lift – tilt – filter – split’ (2009-10, London premiere)
Michael Pelzel - ... vers le vent ... (2010, British
premiere)
Mauro Lanza – Der Kampf zwischen Karneval und Fasten,
for eight strings (2012, British premiere)
Irvine Arditti, Ashot
Sarkissjan (violins)
Ralf Ehlhers (viola)
Lucas Fels (cello)
Christopher Otto, Ari Streisfeld
(violins)
John Pickford Richards
(viola)
Kevin McFarland (cello)
A hurricane had prevented the
Arditti Quartet and the JACK Quartet from coming together in November to present these two British premieres from James
Clarke and Mauro Lanza. The Ardittis had nevertheless presented a programme of
four quartets, one of them as shockingly old as to date from 2002-3, again a
Clarke work, his first string quartet. Now we heard the postponed premieres,
plus two more: Alex Mincek’s third string quartet (a London premiere, anyway)
and Michael Pelzel’s ... vers le vent ....
Clarke’s 2012-S is written for two string quartets rather than a string
octet, the point being the relationship between the two quartets, who sometimes
play together, but at others pass material between each other, transform it,
or, in the composer’s term, ‘contradict’ it. The quartets might, for instance,
play at slightly different speeds, ‘all ... precisely written and timed’.
Effort seems very much part of the sound – and the meaning? There is real
violence in the conversation, and yet, even if at some remove, the quartet
convention of ‘conversation’ seems to remain – as it did in this fine
performance. Polyphony, even cacophony, is part of the extremity, and yet a
sense of unity remains, almost akin to older homophony, and not only in the
lengthy sustaining chords whose obvious contrast lies with much faster
material.
Alex Mincek’s third quartet, ‘lift
– tilt – filter – split’, concerns itself at one level with representation, in
the composer’s words, of ‘physical shape, tactility, and movement’, the
listener being permitted ‘to bounce back and forth from the recognition of the
unique parts and the undifferentiated whole’. Near, though not total, identity,
may often be found between one phrase and the next, but change, be it in ‘composite
rhythm’, timbre, pitch, and register content, nevertheless occurs; there is not
the slightest sense of static. Insofar as I was able to tell, the JACK Quartet captured
that process very well indeed, proving fine advocates for the work. The
performance opened as if on a coiled spring, with tight rhythmic focus and attack. Quasi-echoes
in harmonics offered a contrasting soundworld, as did the scurrying of high
violins, perhaps echoing, if only accidentally, certain string writing of
Schoenberg, which one might trace back at least as far as Verklärte Nacht. There was, in what seemed to me a clever piece of
programming, a continued yet different sense of Either/Or – and not just on
account of Kierkegaard’s bicentenary, celebrated the day previously. It may not
be uncommon for a quartet, or indeed for chamber music more generally, to
conclude by disappearing, as it were, into the ether, but this provides a
spellbinding example.
Michael Pelzel’s string
quartet, ... vers le vent..., was
performed by the Ardittis. In three movements, it is perhaps in some senses
more ‘traditional’. According to Pelzel, the first movement is intended to
depart from the idea of ‘a passacaglia on a rhythmic ground with figurative
variations, steadily digressing from its original idea until culminating in a
homophonic line with great energetic intensity.’ There was certainly that sense
of departure in the performance we heard, indeed from the very opening, viola
answered by cello. The second movement offered a ‘frozen’ opening, vertiginous
harmonics melting to a certain degree thereafter; Pelzel thinks of it as
similar to ‘a film in which different narratives unfold simultaneously,’ but
also draws attention to its role as something of a slow introduction to the
third movement, ‘a scintillating, filigree and virtuoso “Toccata volubile”.’
The quality of a perpetuum mobile in
contemporary terms was one that struck me before having seen the composer’s
notes. There was, both in work and performance, perhaps even something of the
quality of a latter-day Haydn, or better Bartók, finale: tradition present, but
reimagined.
Both quartets came together
for the British premiere of Mauro Lanza’s Der
Kampf zwischen Karneval und Fasten, inspired in some sense by Breugel’s
depiction of the battle between feasting and fasting, which is broadened, as
Lanza points out, to a conflict between ‘meat and fish ..., winter and spring, tavern
and church, whose literary pendant can be the battle between [the monster] Quaresmeprenant
and the army of sausages in Rabelais’s Quart
Livre.’ Punctuating chimes – I could see neither where they were, nor who
sounded them – and more than a little reminiscence, especially early on, from
Lanza’s work with electronics at IRCAM made their presence felt. So did a slow
sense of progression, more so, at least to my ears, than the dualism signalled
in the title, which would certainly have provided continuity with works in the
first half. I am sure the problem was mine, but confess that I did not find the
work, however excellently performed, as compelling as its title might have
suggested, at least until its rather magical coda-like conclusion, more
delicate, fragile even. A second hearing would doubtless reveal more of the
dialectic to which the composer appeals.
