Midday Masterpieces (9/6/17)

The Argus Quartet – Clara Kim, violin; Jason Issokson, violin;
Dana Kelley, viola; Joann Whang, cello

String Quartet in C Major, Opus 74, No. 1 – Franz Joseph Haydn
This Is My Scary Robot Voice – Kerrith Livengood
Satellites – Garth Knox

This was the first concert of Midday Masterpieces’ new season, and quite enjoyable it was. These are free, hour-long concerts sponsored by WQXR, featuring students from The Juilliard School. Without a printed program, I don’t have movement names or composition dates, so my notes are a bit more scattered than usual. The first movement of the Haydn had a brief intro followed by a fun, moderately busy movement with a nice mix of different tempos. The second was slower to begin with but still full of energy. The third was dance-like (minuet?), and also fun, with more of that characteristic energy of the work plus a few touches of drama along the way. The fourth movement continued the energy, this time with fancy finger work thrown in for good measure. I’m not big on the theory of different moods associated with different keys, but the C Major here, along with the energy throughout, made this work seem cheerful and bright. And it was played very well.

Both Scary Robot and Satellites are by living composers, and in brief remarks from the stage, Ms. Kim described a bit of Scary Robot and what the composer was trying to achieve. The piece was very modern, pitting the composer’s normal voice (sort of shy and retiring) with her scary robot voice (more forceful and in your face). A slightly surreal opening had unison string pitches that then went to different players veering away from that unison, sometimes with dissonant notes and sometimes with just microtones creating the dissonances. A louder section reminded me of the adult voices in a Peanuts cartoon special. There was alternation between the two different voices, with slight variations from time to time. Interesting techniques were on display, but musically, it didn’t quite work for me.

Even though Satellites had three movements, the second and third seemed to blend together.
[Okay, I went scurrying to my good friend, the internet. This, from performance notes that I found: “Although Satellites was conceived as an organic whole, the three movements can also be performed separately, or in twos … When all three are performed, it is suggested to link the movements together, by ... holding the last note of the second movement on first violin until the viola enters to begin the last movement.”]
The first movement started out with lots and lots of pizzicato (plucked strings) that then had bowed strings from the violins, as well. The mix of techniques was nice, with the ever-present pizzicato as the glue holding it together. The second movement, Spectral Sunrise, had dramatic, sweeping sounds—a real feeling of something arising out of nothingness. The individual sunrises were pretty easy to detect. The piece then continued with yet again more mixing of techniques that somehow made the piece feel like Gustav Holst’s Planets gone goony. At one point, the players’ bows were used in a whip-like fashion that reminded me of those plastic tubes we used to whirl around over our heads to get weird pseudo-singing sounds. As strange as this piece was, I found that I really enjoyed it.

I’ll be going back for more Midday Masterpieces.

ConcertMeister