The Maine Event
by BLC
Elliott Schwartz: Shaker Variations (2007) — Zoltán Kodály: Serenade for Two Violins and Viola (1921) — Beethoven: String Quartet, Op. 59, #1. Portland String Quartet. Boothbay Opera House, Boothbay Harbor, ME. September 9, 2007.
This date with music was one of pure serendipity. Who knew that a six-day jaunt away from New York would find us chatting with Elliott Schwartz and members of the Portland String Quartet in Boothbay Harbor, and meeting the co-concertmaster of the Bangor Symphony quite by accident on a bus ride from Boston to Portland? As Dr. Schwartz confirmed for us, there is plenty of music happening in Maine, and when he retired after 42 years at Bowdoin College, he and his wife turned down an opportunity to resettle in New York, opting instead to stay in this state with its countless charms and unhurried pace.
The Boothbay Opera House is the cultural center in this town, but the only art music heard here during the past summer was performed by the Portland on two occasions, in June and on this Sunday. House manager Cathy Sherrill is very busy keeping the place alive and well, but, as with most music venues, classical music can hardly be counted on to sustain its financial health. We hear this all the time, of course, and cellist Paul Ross alluded to modern music’s dilemma in particular with his “silver-lining” remark before the concert that the good thing about contemporary music is audiences get to meet living composers.
Elliott Schwartz is one living composer who has not only met with audiences but developed a strong affinity with the best new-music performers. The PSQ commissioned his Shaker Variations, a brand new work premiered earlier this year at the historic Shaker Meeting House in Portland on the occasion of the group’s own Maine Festival of American Music. The notable event came about through the invitation of Sister Frances A. Carr, the last surviving Shaker nun. Necessity being the mother of invention, another motive for the work’s creation was the dearth of literature for the viola-cello duo, the quartet’s lower half. The occasion was novel in that the two players performed the piece on brand new carbon fiber instruments. Some opinions expressed about these modern strings is that they lack resonance in the bass. We found no such deficiency, and if there was any at this event, one would have to consdier the acoustics of the hall itself, which we found quite acceptable.
Though not laid out in terms of formal movements — the composition is but 12 minutes in duration — it is comprised of five Shaker hymns, sewn together with characteristic skill and sensitivity. To be sure no one loses sight of its date of creation or its challenge to two forward-looking instrumentalists, the composer has provided some complex counterpoint that requires lots of bowing shifts. The melodies selected were those that appealed to him for their beauty, but they are very much of a single tempo. Schwartz somehow manages to give the music ample contour and end it with a hearty flourish.
The second work on the program brought in the two violinists. The serenade is hardly new music, though written within the last hundred years, a mid-career one from the pen of Kodály, Béla Bartók’s mentor and ally in the expedition to find symphonic gold (if you will) in Hungarian folk music. First violinist Stephen Kecskemethy spoke about the music’s relationship to Hungarian speech patterns. Of Hungarian background himself (Kecskemet is a city in Hungary), he spoke a few Hungarian words to demonstrate these rhythms. This characteristic is prominent in the opening Allegremente, which has the effect of a brisk three-way conversation, made even more lucid by the lack of a grumbling bass instrument. The Lento which follows features the three instruments entering one at a time with its own personal take on the main theme (vis-à-vis the canonic form). The idea of separate personalities melding into a rich harmonic palette appears to be what the composer was aiming at, and, if the case, he succeeded quite winningly. The final Vivo is indeed quite lively music, with unmistakable allusions to the popular Hungarian Rhapsodies of Franz Liszt, though convincingly bearing much more authenticity.
Only after intermission did the entire quartet come together with an assertive performance of Beethoven’s first of his three memorable quartets honoring the Russian Count Rasoumovsky. There was also a surprise encore: an arrangement of “Simple Gifts” by violist Julia Adams. In a way it served to recycle the program back to the opening piece, which deliberately omits the tune used famously by Aaron Copland. The idea had a charmingly ironic touch.
Rounding out this widely acclaimed quartet is second violinist Ronald Lantz, who displays a visible enjoyment in performance, something we always find appealing, whether it be a chorus of contemporary percussionists who sway in tandem to the rhythms being produced or the noted Joel Krasnick and his happy cello.
Oh yes, speaking of string players, who was that violinist we met on a bus? She is Lynn Brubaker, and we hope to have more to say about her in the near future other than that she is admittedly no sideliner when it comes to new music.
[Ed. note: For more information on the carbon fiber string instruments played at this concert, visit < www.luisandclark.com>.]
