Midday Masterpieces (6/7/17)

Verona Quartet – Jonathan Ong, violin; Dorothy Ro, violin;
Abigail Rojansky, viola; Warren Hagerty, cello
String Quartet No. 7 – Allegretto; Lento; Allegro – Allegretto – [Adagio] – Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)
String Quartet in F Major – Allegro moderato – très doux; Assez vif –
très rhythmé; Très lent; Vif et agité – Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
 
Yes, two gentlemen form Verona, along with two ladies. (I couldn’t help myself!) This concert was the last in WQXR’s inaugural season of Midday Masterpieces, a joint venture with the Juilliard School, in which Juilliard students present an hour-long (ish) concert in the Jerome L. Greene performance/broadcast studio. I attended all of this season’s except one. This concert was played very well by this young quartet. As a background note, there is no printed program for these concerts, so I did internet searching for movement names and composers’ dates. My notes from the concert were written before I knew the movement names (or even the number of movements) but I’ve decided to present my notes pretty much as is, so some redundancy may be evident.
 
The Shostakovich had a simple opening that stayed relatively simple even as it expanded. That expansion included fuller, rhythmic sounds and lots of short rhythmic phrases interspersed with a few long lines, at times mysterious sounding. A louder, faster section was compelling. Though it might have seemed angry at times, it really wasn’t—I found that it pulled me in as a listener. I queried myself as to whether the work was through composed. Not exactly. In my limited reading about the piece, I learned that even though there are the three distinct movements, they are to be played without a break.
 
The violist introduced the Ravel and told of how it essentially rounded up the biggies of French Impressionist composing (though many of them eschewed that moniker). The structure of the work was based on the shape of a Claude Debussy quartet, and Ravel’s piece was dedicated to Gabriel Fauré, who was Debussy’s teacher. Not a bad pedigree. The first movement was gentle and seemed almost lush after the somewhat harsher tonalities of the Shostakovich. It seemed to be trying to paint actual aural pictures and was pretty, though still using modern harmonies. It had a nice mix of tempos as well as both anxiously rhythmic and smooth legato phrases. The brisk pizzicato opening of the second movement was followed by a mix of rhythmic tunes and more pizzicato playing. Always moving forward, it then had a legato section with lovely tunes, even if some of them had a slightly darker cast.
 
The third movement was misterioso in a gentle, embracing way, with touches of hopeful brightness demonstrated by strong cello lines with the other three voices providing shimmering, ethereal sounds. The fourth movement started off presto and never looked back. It was much more modern in style in an abrupt change from the previous movement. Though there were a few slightly more lyrical sections, it was hard to see the connections between the two styles. They were there, even if it seemed as though they shouldn’t work. It turns out that, as we learned before hearing the piece, Debussy loved the entire work but Fauré hated the final movement. I can almost understand why.
 
The season is expected to kick off again in, I believe, September. Considering that it’s always the first Wednesday of the month, we’ll see if that’s the case. Maybe October? I plan to be there and will keep you posted.

ConcertMeister