Arditti Quartet, JACK Quartet - Clarke, Mincek, Pelzel, and Lanza, 6 May 2013

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.  

Arditti Quartet - Clarke, Abrahmsen, Saunders, and Rihm, 31 October 2012

Wigmore Hall

 

James Clarke – String Quartet no.1 (2002-3)

Hans Abrahmsen – Quartet no.4 (2012, United Kingdom premiere)
Rebecca Saunders – Fletch (2012, United Kingdom premiere)
Wolfgang Rihm – String Quartet no.13 (2011)

Irvine Arditti and Ashot Sarkissjan (violins)
Ralf Ehlers (viola)
Lucas Fels (cello)

 

Hurricane Sandy necessitated alterations to the programme of this concert. The New York-based JACK Quartet’s absence entailed postponement of the British premieres of James Clarke’s 2012-S for two string quartets and Mauro Lanza’s Der Kampf zwischen Karneval und Fasten for octet. In their place came Clarke’s first string quartet and Wolfgang Rihm’s thirteenth. Two British premieres, then, rather than four, but all the works were new to me, and Clarke’s work was the outlier in being almost a decade old.

Its arresting opening proved typically uncompromising in its violence. Considerable use is made of glissandi, post-Xenakis buzzing, glassy harmonics: but this is no mere catalogue of effects. Themes, if I may call them that, or motifs are flung between the four parts with visceral abandon – as they were in the Arditti Quartet’s commanding performance. Dogged insistence and something akin to variation were revealed as two sides of the same coin, a ‘duet’ between two violins almost beguiling, likewise its successor for viola and cello. And yes, this ultimately proved conversational in a quartet tradition one might trace back to its founder, Haydn.

 

Hans Abrahamsen’s fourth string quartet was commissioned in 2010 but took twenty years to write. I wish I could say I thought it worth the wait. Again, there is an arresting opening: high solo first violin harmonics intoning a chorale-like tune. Joined by the second violin, then the viola, and then very briefly the cello, all using harmonics, the process is repeated. A second hearing, then, though of course in knowledge of what has passed before. I was intrigued by dim echoes of Bartók and perhaps even the viol consort in the opening of the second movement, before it settled down into a quasi-minimalist mode of expression whose mild motor rhythms and tonal harmony sounded more suited to a television film score than a stand-alone concert piece. The third movement consciously echoes the first, or rather mirrors it, opening with a cello pizzicato solo passage, joined by viola (again pizzicato), and so on upwards, rounded off, again very briefly, with an utterance sul ponticello by the first violin. The process, again, is repeated. Likewise the fourth movement echoed the second, apparently ‘planned,’ according to the composer, ‘as a dark and heavy counterpart but it turned out to be like “babbling” music of a child’. Though I clearly was not on Abrahamsen’s wavelength, there could be no faulting the response of the Arditti players, as committed here as elsewhere.

 

Rebecca Saunders’s Fletch concluded the first half in what sounded to me far more typical Arditti territory. In the composer’s words:

Fletch, n. (archery); the feather placed on the arrow, providing it with the capacity of flight; the feathered vane towards the back of the arrow, used to stabilise during flight. Fletch is a furious ongoing exploration of a specific physical gesture and fragment of sound.

The physical quality of tone was vividly, viscerally communicated in work and performance. Glissandi, rapid crescendo, trills, and more combined to far more than the sum of their parts, betokening a fascinating exploration of the instruments and their capabilities as much as performing techniques. There was on a first hearing a satisfying formal arc, or perhaps better progression, which put me in mind – how or why, I cannot quite explain – of a neo-Lisztian symphonic poem. It was an instinctive reaction, doubtless, but perhaps that was in keeping with the physical immediacy of the piece.

 

Rihm’s thirteenth quartet had the second half to itself. It sounded as if from another world, or planet, its post-Bergian harmonic language and motivic development more ‘traditional’, though none the worse for that. Formal propulsion clearly grew out of the material with a rhythmic insistency that perhaps owed something to Stravinsky, even to Henze. The one-movement formal compression inevitably evoked echoes of Schoenberg, though the concentration rarely seemed as extreme as his. A chorale-like passage – again! – was played with neo-Romantic abandon, revelling in the richness of its harmonisation. Developing variation, its roots in Schoenberg and Brahms, still has a great deal to impart.

Arditti Quartet - Premieres of Clarke, Ferneyhough, Fujikura, and Paredes, 3 February 2011

Wigmore Hall

James Clarke – String Quartet no.2 (2009, London premiere)
Brian Ferneyhough – String Quartet no.6 (2010, London premiere)
Dai Fujikura – Flare (2010, world premiere)
Hilda Paredes – Canciones Lunáticas (2009, world premiere of complete work)

Irvine Arditti and Ashot Sarkissjan (violins)
Ralf Ehlers (viola)
Lucas Fels (cello)


In a better, let alone ideal, world, more concert programmes would resemble this. New music, performed by musicians at the height of their powers, would stand at the very heart of musical life, as was the case until not so very long ago. There would remain plenty of opportunities for forays into the museum of the past, but it would never be permitted to overwhelm contemporary musical production. Some works would be better than others of course, but an acceptance of risk – goodness knows, we risk enough mediocre or poor performances of, say, Tchaikovsky symphonies from our major orchestras! – would accept that. Doubtless this would all be decried by many as madness commensurate with that depicted in the verse of Pedro Serrano, set in Hilda Paredes’s Canciones lunáticas, but it need not be so; nor has it been for most of our musical history.

Back to the grey reality of late capitalist society, however. James Clarke’s second quartet here received its London premiere, the first performance having taken place in 2009 at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. The programme note hinted at why Clarke might not be the most readily accepted prophet in his own country:

The composer has written: ‘It is a quality of music and some of the visual arts that they do not communicate ideas in the same area as words. The substance is different. I prefer to allow the music to make a statement on its own terms and to avoid as much as possible the descriptive (including titles). … I believe that to attempt to describe the impulse or “inspiration” behind a work is to detract from its enigmatic potential and undermine the directness of its power.’

Fair enough: it is a perfectly respectable, though not incontestable, point of view. However, it does not necessarily help a naïve listener get to grips with unfamiliar music. It might not therefore have been entirely unreasonable to have had someone else contribute a note. It did mean, though, that one could, indeed must, listen more or less without prejudice. I had certainly never heard the work before, and I doubt that most in the audience would have done so, though, given the apparent preponderance of ‘contemporary music enthusiasts’, I suspect a few had. The opening impression was of intense drama, relative extremes of instrumental range navigated by rather appealing, rapid, quasi-scalic figuration. Considerable use of harmonics soon imparted a suggestion, though only that, of electronic means. (It is perhaps worth noting how in many works the suggestion of such can be at least as interesting as the ‘real thing’.) Violence was certainly present, but it never seemed to be there for its own sake, likewise the use of extended techniques: rhetorical, yet idiomatic. Silences appeared to play an important structural and expressive part, at times reminding me of Nono. Repeated notes and their treatment took on an increasingly pivotal role too. This may have been ‘complex’ music but it bore an overpowering sense of direction. There was, moreover, within Clarke’s personal idiom, a real sense of interaction between the four instrumentalists: that is, ‘proper’ quartet writing.

Ferneyhough is another English composer more sung on what we still sometimes refer to as ‘the Continent’ than upon this Sceptred Isle. Here, the composer’s note was certainly informative, though I can imagine its density of expression – surely, not least a parallel to Ferneyhough’s music – eliciting a dismissive chortle from would-be bluff English ‘empiricists’. Give them a good dose of Hegel to read! Much of the composer’s recent work has sought to reconsider how ‘awareness of temporal space can be heightened or redefined by staging a discrepancy of adequation between the emplacement and unfolding of sonic materials and the time available for their individual reception’. This sixth quartet in a sense takes that process further, and, according to the composer, overlaps and embeds fragments ‘so as to create an unpredictable tangle of conflicting materials and time frames’. In practice, I was actually less sure. Yes, there was tangling; much of this is relative, after all. However, I fancied at least that I could perceive different characters to the musical fragments, as well as in their interaction. The latter was, perhaps, more the thing, though, in that the toing-and-froing – that makes it sound rather milder than it is – of musical ideas appeared generative of the composer’s trademark complexity. Process as well as result at the very least sounded discernible or imaginable, doubtless in part a tribute to the superlative performances, here as elsewhere, from the Arditti Quartet. Melody, and I really could not conceive of why one should not call it that, took on many forms: an extended solo for the first violin, here mesmerizingly performed by Irvine Arditti, and a surprising unison passage, as well as a more typical near-overload of melodic profusion, redolent in its way of some of Schoenberg’s writing.

Dai Fujikura’s Flare was a Wigmore Hall co-commission, with the rupport of André Hoffmann. Other co-commissioners were the Ishibashi Memorial Hall, Tokyo, and the Edinburgh International Festival, perhaps suggesting a performance north of the border this summer. Pictorial imagery was explicitly evoked both in the composer’s programme note and in the music itself: ‘When writing this work I imagined sitting round a campfire as a child, watching the embers flaring off into the sky…’. Very different from Clarke’s æsthetic, one might say, or from Ferneyhough’s, and surely it is, yet perhaps accidentally, there seemed to be points of contact, not least in the use of repeated notes. The Webern-like shards – melodic shards, one might say – with which the piece opened soon gave way to ‘a lot [certainly true!] of rather wild percussive sounds (pizzicato, left hand pizzicato, col legno, spiccato, bouncing bow, finger tapping, snap pizzicato, pizzicato tremolo) and then combines with the imagined reverse sounds of those effects’. Left-hand pizzicati not only looked like but even sounded a little like the banjo, whilst it was intriguing to hear the ‘reverse sounds’, not least some rich-toned viola playing from Ralf Ehlers: a little neo-Romantic for some perhaps (the writing, that is), but the overall conception, arch-like in almost neo-Bartókian fashion, had its narrative and, I suspect, musical justification.

Finally came the first complete performance of Parades’s Canciones lunáticas, the second and third of the three songs having been first performed at the 2009 Heidelberg Spring International Music Festival. Jake Arditti, son of Irvine and of the composer, joined the players in what again was a magnificent performance. His is a countertenor voice of considerable richness; his rendition was spellbinding, attentive to words and music, for he and the quartet did not merely perform but interpreted. There is obvious scope for interpretation in this very different sound-world, more ‘atmospheric’ perhaps, certainly highly evocative of night, the moon, and madness. Opening with a dark, lonely night, the moon our only witness, we move through a second song of lunacy – wordplay apparent between ‘luna’ and ‘lunáticos’ – to a final dance for the liberated moon in the meadow. Pierrot lunaire inevitably came to mind, and the soloist’s whispering suggested a new version of the old idea of Sprechstimme. Here, focused upon the letter ‘s’, a link was perhaps also suggested with some of Nono’s vocal techniques, though that may simply just have been coincidence. If one could hardly but think of Pierrot, that was not the only Schoenbergian reference, or at least suggestion: Verklärte Nacht came to my mind more than once in the first song, the moon’s passing by and disquiet – ‘pasa la luna, inquieta’ – proving, not least in Jake Arditti’s delivery of the line, a turning point akin to that half-way through Schoenberg’s sextet: transfiguration perhaps? Some imagery was almost straightforwardly pictorial – harmonics and glissandi, for instance – but it always seemed to make musical as well as narrative sense, likewise the iridescence of ‘for the moonstruck’ (‘a los lunáticos’) in the second song. The final dance of the moon, ‘a slowed-down version,’ according to Paredes, ‘of the Mexican huapango, that changes from ternary to binary,’ was fantastical, quite enchanting.