Edgar Meyer shines bright with the Dover Quartet

Edgar Meyer

Monday July 22 saw the great contrabassist Edgar Meyer join the Dover Quartet for a spectacular performance going into the final week of the CMNW Summer Festival. The program featured works by Bach, Brahms and a composition of Meyer's own.

Sonata No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1027 (in this case played by Katie Hyun on violin, Camden Shaw cello and Edgar Meyer on contrabass) opened the everning. It was fascinating to hear the sonata without a continuo as one thinks of it, but with two independent melodic instruments forming the support for the violin.

Meyer found the most dulcet timbre imaginable on his intrument. All three performers were able to bring pitch-perfect accuracy to the most dissonant and abstruse harmonic developments, as surely as if it were a 3-voice fugue played on a clavier. Meyer's ceaselessly gentle yet insistent mezzo-staccato was a thing of beauty. In the finale the pizzicato from the bass was so delicately and intuitively phrased--the perfect symmetry and balance cannot be overstated.

The approachable complexity of the composition required that all three perform at an equally high level to properly realize it, and the result was elegant, energetic and indescribably lovely. Absolutely everything that is best and most beautiful about baroque chamber music was present in this small ensemble.

Meyer's String Quintet (1995) opened with a gossamer Appalachian reverie. Consisting of the Dover Quartet plus Meyer, the texture was incredibly full-throated while still being gentle.  As the movement morphed into a more somber rallentando, Meyer sawed away in what could only be described as a rally into a hoe-down, and the group thundered together in primitive chordal phrases.

The second movement started as a funky blues tune, with both bass and cello having at it. Eerie sul ponticello wails from the violins presented a disturbing emotional counterpoint to the grooviness going on elsewhere. At one point Meyer had the bass neighing like a horse. The quirky, personalized nature of the composition was always present.

 In the third, viola and cello played in chilling unison while strange, warped glissandi from the bass interrupted the plaintive monodic somnolence. The finale began with ceaseless trills and tremolandi, while ominous, syncopated pedal point grumbling from Meyer lay underneath. The entire work seemed, from a technical standpoint, a loving and intensely fascinating study into the textures and effects of a string ensemble employing jazz, blues and bluegrass idioms.

Brahms String Quintet in G Major, Op 3, formed the second half of the evening. This time it was the Dover Quartet plus Paul Neubauer on the extra viola. The glorious sawing from Shaw on his cello was accompanied by a strident molto vibrato from all, forming a vision of pure fire and passion. Mysterious and subdued, the players all carefully held back in the second movement, lending a feeling of quiet tension, like a coiled spring. The poco allegretto played like a grandiose serenade. It is fascinating how the addition of one more bowed instrument, of whatever kind, transforms the sonic possibilities of a string quartet from a chamber ensemble to that of what is essentially a small string orchestra. The amazing ensemble playing displayed a deep and intimate understanding not only of how he or she could sound, but of how they could and should sound. The Dover Quartet has never disappointed in all the times I've seen them, and this was no exception.

Andy Akiho brings the magic back to Chamber Music Northwest's Summer Festival

Andy Akiho

Returning composer/performer Andy Akiho and friends gave a memorable concert on Wednesday July 11 at the Alberta Rose Theater, as part of CMNW's Summer Festival. Akiho's reputation (and audience) have grown over the years, as the packed house that night proved.

Joining Akiho, who performed several works on his primary instrument the steel pan, were Ian David Rosenbaum on marimba, Tara Helen O'Connor on flute, Jennifer Frautschi on violin, and the members of the Dover Quartet, violinists Joel Link and Bryan Lee, cellist Camden Shaw and violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt.

The decision to mic all the instruments at first was puzzling; in the opening work the flute came off as excessively shrill at parts, but balance issues were fine and did not favor one instrument over another, and it was clearly what the composer had in mind so while initially off-putting, through the course of the concert his choice bore fruit.

The opening piece was the world premiere of the flute/marimba instrument set for -intuition) (Expectation, the original having been written for trumpet/marimba. O'Connor joined Rosenbaum for this syncopated, jazzy work, set over a subtly shifting ostinato on the marimba. There were nice effects from the flute, chuffing and aspirating and exaggerated flutter tonguing. A difficult piece to approach but it sort of grew on you...

Karakurenai was next, with Akiho and Rosenbaum, and was a work for prepared steel pan featuring chop sticks, poster tack and other items according to Akiho. Based around a rigid, lengthy syncopation, this shorter work had a repetitive feel that could be meditative in the right circumstances.

Deciduous, featuring Akiho and Frautschi, came third. The opening highlighted the strangely mellifluous, odd almost tonal-shifting attack and decay from the steel pan. Radically shifting moods, from frenetic and harried to placid and thoughtful took place instantaneously, leaving the listener never quite sure of anything except where they were at at the moment. A series of harmonic shrieks from the violin over a whispering accompaniment from the pan was followed by an odd, chaotic chase. Some of the most violent and painful-sounding pizzicato I've ever heard--almost diabolical--and then a beautiful soliloquy from the pan, a joyous air and a pentatonic fantasy...this was a fantastic and engaging piece.

21, a piece Akiho and Rosenbaum performed here before, left an impression that perhaps for Akiho, often (but certainly not always,) the rhythm is the mistress, and varying pitches and timbres, melodies and instruments, exist merely to service it.

Ian David Rosenbaum

The second half consisted entirely of the LIgNEouS Suite, a work some of whose movements were commissioned by different groups, with the fifth and final movement being commissioned by the Dover Quartet, who performed it along with Rosenbaum. This performance was its west coast premier.

It opened with sul ponticello scritching from the strings, and a repeating pattern over a wild and intense performance on the marimba. Wailing away with mallet shafts bereft of their yarn heads, Rosenbaum performed incredibly rapid arpeggios and scale passages with alacrity, now raking the sticks across the marimba tubes in a cacophonous glissando, followed by hard, alarmingly loud snaps from a giant rubber band. The strings sang an unlovely but fascinating accompaniment. This and other movements may not have been a marimba concerto exactly, but they came close.

The second movement began with a ghostly suppuration from the strings over a murmuring marimba, struck with very soft heads that resulted in dissonant sostenutos as the notes hung in the air long after being struck. In this and in earlier pieces, unisons occured amongst the instruments that provided a fascinating sonic color due to the disparity amongst them.

Later in the work came more startling effects from the marimba, alternatively purposely assaultive and mysteriously otherworldly. Gloriously loud, stark chords came from the strings, and strange sawing sounds, wails, slaps and knocks on the body and fingerboards of instruments. Like all of his works, this exhibited exhuberant play with the world of sounds.

Two things struck me most about this concert: first would be Rosenbaum's virtuosity on his instrument. As a percussionist I have played the marimba a number of times, so have some small inkling of the challenges this instrument presents. I have never heard it played, nor imagined it could be played, the way Rosenbaum plays it. Simply breathtaking-and here give some credit to the composer-but a lesser performer could not have attempted nor even dreamed of giving the kind of performance Rosenbaum did. It was absolutely astounding, the most technically astute and artistically intuitive kind of exhibition anyone could hope for from a true virtuoso. Being somewhat biased toward percussionists, I have often felt the they are sometimes given shorter shrift than they deserve in the world of classical/art music. Let anyone who feels that way hear a performance like this. Enough said.

Another thing is the simple joy of not only hearing something you have never heard before, but maybe even hearing something that is unlike anything you have heard before. This is the great reward that exists for those who seek out new music, which is perhaps the foremost of so many reasons I always go to hear Andy Akiho when he is in town.

The Dover Quartet and David Shifrin deliver in an outstanding CMNW program

Richard Danielpour

Thursday July 14 at the Kaul Auditorium saw the kind of performance one expects from Chamber Music Northwest's Summer Festival: poised, professional, and artistically sublime. Featuring the Dover Quartet and David Shifrin on clarinet, and including a world premier by renowned composer Richard Danielpour, the program was varied and delightful.

The evening opened with Beethoven's String Quartet in E-flat Major ("Harp") Op. 74 with just the string quartet: Joel Link and Bryan Lee on violin, Milena Pajaro-van-de-Stadt viola, and Camden Shaw, cello. Immediately apparent was a rich and wonderful uniformity of pitch, timbre, and timing, highlighted by a marvelously deft 'code-switching' (to borrow a linguistic term) between the numerous pizzicato and arco motives as they were handed off between instruments. With a soaring sense of purpose, the young players achieved as fulsome a sound as one could hope to hear.

Moving into the Adagio the music became a seamless pulse, an ebb and flow like an earth tide almost imperceptibly shifting the ground beneath your feet. The group exhibited a justified self-assurance--the notes were so spot on and well-executed that all technical considerations were second-nature, and all could be devoted to a deeply thoughtful rendering of the spirit of the work. Shaw played the brief, ubiquitious half-measure-or-so exposed cello coda of the Allegretto sublimely, with the cooperation of the rest of the players who graciously stepped aside time and again so the charming subito pianissimo motive could be heard. Pajaro-van-de-Stadt's viola solo was affecting and direct, and the smooth handing off of pedal points between all four voices was great fun to hear.  I found myself given to involuntary smiles and chuckles for sheer delight, gloriously basking in this wonderful sea of sound.

Shifrin joined the group for the world premiere of Richard Danielpour's Clarinet Quintet, mysteriously subtitled by the composer "The Last Jew in Hamadan." The composer was on hand for the performance, and explained that his father was born in Hamadan, Iran, a city that once had a vibrant Jewish community (indeed it is reputed to be the burial place of the biblical Queen Esther) but was predicted by one writer to have only one Jew left in the city by the year 2020.

It opened with a sparking, culturally rich clarinet theme that cut through a charging agitato from the strings (Agitato con energia was the marking for the movement) with its rapid-fire melody and occasional squawks and honks. It was suggestive of a bustling, hurried life--perhaps unquiet but fascinating and lovely. Short, expressive phrases kept popping out here and there, Shifrin playing masterfully as always this ceaseless, frothing soundscape.

The Adagietto e triste began with a plaintive dirge from the clarinet over a hurdy-gurdy sound from the strings. Sinuous and melancholy--but somehow hopeful, not defeatist--it wound its way toward a fascinating tutti on one pitch, with the clarinet adding a daring color to the whole effect. Haunting doublings and dramatic seizures were hallmarks of the movement. It was a fine, original piece, and well worth a world premier at such a great festival.

The second half of the evening consisted entirely of the Clarinet Quintet in B-flat Major, Op. 34, by Carl Maria von Weber.  A liquid descending scale from the clarinet kicked it off.  There was a hilarious squawking high note delivered with what can only be described as comedic timing by Shifrin. A somewhat ungainly but not wholly unlovable first movement--what dramatic and contrasting stuff.

As the work moved on the group was able to make the most out of a work full of emotional moments but with a dearth of narrative cohesion--this would've been dull in lesser hands, but the skill of the musicians was such that they molded it into something worth hearing--a fine showcase for Shifrin that was capped off by a truly virtuosic finale.