Ligeti – String Quartet no.1, ‘Métamorphoses
nocturnes’
Christian Mason
– Tuvan SongbookLou Harrison – String Quartet Set: ‘Estampie’
Fodé Lassana Diabaté (arr. Jacob Garchik) – Sunjata’s Time: ‘Nana Triban’
Bartók – String Quartet no.5, Sz.102
Mandhira de Saram, Patrick Dawkins (violins)
Richard Jones (viola)
Val Welbanks (cello)
‘Melodicles’, the title given
to this concert as a whole, was a concept of Lou Harrison’s, referring to short
motifs, inverted or reversed – perhaps one of the few signs in his music of his
study with Schoenberg – to create musical modes. It is Harrison’s centenary
this year, so it was especially good to have the Ligeti Quartet play some of
his music. (I am not sure I have ever
been to a concert in which he was featured before.) I wish I could have been
more enthusiastic about this ‘Estampie’ dance from his 1978-9 String Quartet Set. Its simplicity has
something to be said for it, I am sure, but I was glad that it did not go on
any longer, beginning to tire of its single line melody, shared between first
violin and viola, accompanied – for once, very much the right word – by busier,
melody-less rhythm on the second violin and percussive use of the cello
(knocking on its case, and so on). It was clearly very well played, though, and
not at all unpleasant to hear; I was grateful for the opportunity.
On either side of the Harrison
piece, which one might think of as imagined folk music, came two other folkish
pieces. Christian Mason’s 2016 Tuvan
Songbook is a transcription (and, to a certain extent, it seems,
recomposition) of four traditional Tuvan songs. Two incorporated actual singing
– although I was somewhat disappointed that it was not of the throaty variety
one might have expected. The sharp rhythmic profile of the first, ‘Dyngylday’,
strong on syncopation, augured very well, but I did not find its promise
consistently realised. In the fourth, ‘Exir-Kara’ (‘Black Eagle’), it was
intriguing to hear singing anticipated by some string extended techniques.
Having said that, I found more to capture and retain my attention in the encore, Mason’s
Mongolian-inspired Racing Horses,
which seemed to me more a composition in its own right.
Perhaps I had just not been on
the right wavelength, or in the right mood, for I felt similarly about ‘Nana
Triban’, transcribed and arranged for string quartet by Jacob Garchik, from the
Malian balafon player, Lassana Diabaté’s 2016 Sunjata’s Time (a Kronos Quartet commission). Cellist Val Wellbanks
had the tune, the rest the accompaniment. It was pleasant enough, but I could
not help wondering how much had been lost in transcription.
On either side of those works –
as if the programming itself were conceived as a Bartókian arch – were works by
Ligeti and Bartók. Ligeti’s First Quartet revealed itself as a typical mixture
of, or dialectic between, ‘process’ and ‘expression’. Its many short sections
are highly contrasted indeed – and so they sounded here in performance.
Violent, Bartókian outbursts were especially well handled, as was the bizarre
waltzing section – and its humour. Subsiding into nothingness at the close was
again very well achieved, so much so that the audience seemed unaware that the
piece had ended.
Bartók’s Fifth Quartet is, by
any standards, a towering masterpiece. Itself in the arch form I observed in
the programme as a whole, it received an estimable performance (albeit not
always helped by the less than ideal acoustic of Kings Place’s Hall Two). The
first movement showed a true sense of musical obsessiveness, and not a little
wildness, which yet never degenerated into lack of discipline. Night music and
Bulgarian meter were in general vividly portrayed in the inner movements. In the
finale, Beethovenian purpose, perhaps even method in the motivic working, was
unquestionably apparent: inspiration in the very best sense.
