Miró String Quartet & Premiere
by
Lyn Bronson
Chamber Music Monterey Bay (CMMB) launched the beginning of
its 2007-2008 Season last night at Sunset Center, and it was a truly stunning
event. Combining the world premiere of a new work commissioned by CMMB and the
fabulous playing of the Miró String Quartet, we heard an outstanding combination
of an absorbing program and super performances.
CMMB Audiences last night were introduced to young
35-year-old composer Kevin Puts (rhymes with “flutes”) whose commissioned work
for string quartet,” Credo,” will be an important repertory item for the Miró
String Quartet during its next three years of concert programming.
Mr. Puts appeared on stage before the
performance and introduced the audience to relevant sections of his new work
with the quartet providing some brief samples. Puts had been asked by CMMB in
the original commission to incorporate into the new work some aspects of
American life to compliment the rest of the program, which would have an
“Americana” flavor of music either by American composers or inspired by American
themes. Puts, although, recognizing that our society today has serious problems
both internally and externally, can still say that he is proud to be an
American. When you consider that so much of Pop Culture today concerns itself in
a shallow way with teen angst, youth and glamour, drug culture and a frivolous
pursuit of “fame and fortune fast and easy,” Kevin Puts has created here a work
that is on a considerably higher level, yet is not only immediately relevant to audience
members, but also genuinely moved them. My
guess is that every person who heard this performance last night would relish
hearing it again. What better compliment can you give a composer?
Puts explained that the first section of Credo was inspired
by an experience at the atelier of a stringed instrument specialist in Katonah,
New York, where every person sampling instruments tended to play snatches of
prominent string pieces. He incorporated aspects of this in the opening movement
where you heard violinist Daniel Ching playing samples from a Bach unaccompanied
suite and the Sibelius violin concerto (and probably some others, I didn’t
recognize, but I am sure all string players would). The second section reflected
Puts’ experience while jogging in Pittsburgh and observing the dizzying fast
traffic on a bridge over one of its three rivers. This was an amusing
helter-skelter dazzling section of brilliant string playing with a lovely quiet
interlude interrupting its headlong progress. The following section was a tender
reminiscence of seeing a mother teaching her daughter to dance as observed from
the window of his apartment in New York City. It was the final section that
turned out to be the most profoundly moving.
Lovely playing from the musicians, violinists Daniel Ching and Sandy
Yamamoto, violist John Largess and cellist Joshua Gindele, wormed its way into
our hearts and left us holding our breath during the dramatic final long
decrescendo where the sound grew progressively more quiet and tender, until
finally we were imagining the continuation of the sound so that it never truly
ended.
One of the most satisfying aspects of this performance,
however, was the tumultuous acclaim this concert stirred up from a wildly
appreciative audience − here was a piece of contemporary music receiving a
tremendous standing ovation. It used to be said that contemporary music was
difficult to sell to audiences, but the climate of serious contemporary music
has changed so much in the past twenty years that we are now hearing music that
has an immediate appeal to our audience members, most of whom are senior
citizens, but who are obviously still open to new music in a most enthusiastic
way. The printed program (with excellent program notes by Keith Horner)
mentioned that the commission of “Credo” was made possible by generous gifts
from Drs. Amy Anderson and George Somero, as well as from Lowel Figen. This new
work is dedicated by Mr. Figen in memory of Jamie Figen, a passionate
environmentalist and chamber music lover.
Opening the program was a bit of “Americana,” the String
Quartet No. 1 (1896) (A Revival Service) by Charles Ives. It is difficult for us
to imagine today what America was like during Ives’ early years. The population
of the United States in 1890 was only 63 million (up from 40 million in the year
of his birth, 1874), and, Danbury, Connecticut, where he was born, was a small
town of 11,000 just on the verge of becoming an important manufacturing city
that by 1920 manufactured 25% of all the hats produced in the United States.
In the 1890s this was a world of 4-H,
Grange, Chautauqua and, of course, revival meetings in tents featuring prominent
speakers and singing that were stirring events, never to be forgotten. In his
first Quartet, Ives constantly quotes from many of the hymns familiar from his
youth. Unfortunately, to us today, many of these have been long forgotten, which
tends to diminish the effect of this fine quartet, but by any standard, the
members of the Miró String Quartet gave us a lovely
and elegant performance.
Ending the concert was the ever popular Dvořák Quartet in
F, Op. 96, and this was a knockout. The
precision of these four musicians is so encompassing that you forget that you
are hearing four individual musicians and instead are completely taken over by
the music itself. This was a glorious performance, full of elegant and exciting
playing. After yet again an enthusiastic standing ovation, the quartet members
performed as an encore a minuet from a Mozart String Quartet.
Violist John Largess explained to the audience that in a program
suggestive of “Americana,” this quartet had an unusual significance. It was
performed in the background of a scene from the 1986 Hollywood film, “Ferris
Bueller’s Day Off.” I don’t remember it
from the soundtrack, but it was nevertheless charming.
Kudos to Amy Anderson for fulfilling a dream to bring some
new music to string quartet performances that is not merely lip service to
contemporary music, but rather relevant and important new music that is
enriching the repertoire.
