JACK Was Nimble

Through the auspices of the Carnegie Neighborhood Concert series, I heard JACK Quartet (Ari Streisfeld, Christopher Otto, Violins; John Pickford Richards, Viola; and Kevin McFarland, Cello) at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Dweck Center for Contemporary Culture on Sunday afternoon.

Cat o’ Nine Tails (1988), John Zorn (b. 1953)
String Quartet No. 4 (2012), Light and airy (High in the Sky Singing); With motion (Dance of Light); Dark, heavy, and earthy (with a heavy groove); Gently rocking (with utmost sensitivity, babbling), Hans Abrahamsen (b. 1952)
Structures for String Quartet (1951), Morton Feldman (1926–1987)
String Quartet (1964), Introductory Movement; Main Movement, Witold Lutosławski (1913–1994)

Cat o’ Nine Tails began with some heavy, scratching sounds from all four players. As explained to us from the stage (after the fact), the piece involved numerous “jump cuts,” so there would be a strain of tango, then scratching, then a waltz, then the Looney Tunes tag, etc. While the piece had some humor, the avant-garde qualities were a little grating, to my ears. In fact, that is a fairly apt description of all four pieces on the program. (Some patrons left after the first piece; at least seven left during the Lutosławski.)

Abrahamsen’s composition’s descriptive movement names were fairly telling—especially the first. The High in the Sky Singing was a sort of “scree” that was very thin and reedy sounding.

With Structures, we were told from the stage that Mr. Feldman’s thought process included presenting the individual sounds themselves for themselves, not necessarily relating to each other. Along those lines, the Lutosławski quartet involved aleatoric sections—while there were moments when everybody had to be in the exact same place at the exact same time in the score, the individual players were able to vary the way they got there, so an element of chance was involved throughout.

In addition to the abovementioned scree and scratches (indeed, one scratchy section almost sounded like ducks quacking), there were the usual pizzicato and rhythmically bouncing of bows on strings techniques employed. The playing was of a high quality, I guess. With so much of the music being a little difficult to listen to, it’s hard to know for sure.

This is at least the second time I’ve heard JACK and I’ve enjoyed previous concerts more. I’m certainly glad that I went, but this particular program was just a bit too avant-garde for my tastes.

On a fun note, if you go to the photos section of their website, the airborne photo http://tinyurl.com/oa4esqo (sorry, you’ll have to cut ’n’ paste) is, from left to right, John, Ari, Christopher, Kevin.

ConcertMeister