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Kopelman, Saariaho, Kulenty, Vrebalov: Kronos Quartet, presented by Cal Performances, Hertz Hall, University of California at Berkeley. 1.2.2009 (HS)


In the not too distant past, it would have been a big deal for an established chamber ensemble, even one as forward-thinking as the Kronos Quartet, to present a program entirely of contemporary women composers. This one arrived without comment. I would love to say the four pieces on the menu, all of which were commissioned by Kronos, made for an evening of musical revelations, but in truth the result was uneven.

Despite the wide-ranging international provenance of the music, there was a certain sameness to the pieces by the Russian-born Israeli Aviya Kopelman, the now-familiar Finnish star Kaija Saariaho, the Polish-born resident of Netherlands Hanna Kulenty and the Serbian-American Aleksandra Vrebalov. They all had their moments of ear-catching beauty or flashes of originality, but I also heard an awful lot of keening Arabic tunes, dissonant sounds unrelated to the music surrounding them, prerecorded adjuncts to the already-amplified string quartet sound, bewildering vocal interjections by members of the quartet, and most of all a grinding sense of seriousness, at least among the first three.

By far the most satisfying piece was Vrebalov’s “...hold me, neighbor, in this storm...” which occupied the entire second half of the program. In it the composer juxtaposes music of two prominent warring cultures in her native Serbia—the church music of Serbian Orthodox monasteries and Islamic calls to prayer. The score requires first violinist David Harrington to play a few licks on the gusle, a bowed string instrument, and violist Hank Dutt to rise from his chair and play the tapan, a double-headed drum. What made it exciting was its incessant sense of rhythm, and a real sense of development through that rhythm. The music had real color and depth. In comparison, the pieces in the first half seemed drab and drained of color, although they had their moments.

Kopelman’s Widows and Lovers, written for the quartet’s “Under 30” project and receiving its West Coast premiere, meandered through the first two movements,  “White Widow” and “Lovers,” but caught fire when the dense musical texture clarified into a wonderful jazz-inflected finale, “Black Widow.” In that, cellist Jeffrey Ziegler laid down a bass line and the other others floated a sort of blues-inspired call and response over it. This is the sort of unexpected turn that makes a Kronos concert worth attending.

The Saariaho piece, Nymphéa, written in 1987 for Kronos, lacks the crystalline clarity of her more recent music. It seems almost stodgy in its resolute, slow-moving exploration of high sonorities and dissonances. It just never seems to get anywhere, a criticism that can’t be made of this composer’s music of the last decade. At least no one had to sing or play an unfamiliar instrument.

Kulenty’s String Quartet No. 4 (A Cradle Song) centers on a song the composer originally wrote for her newborn son, and develops it over a single movement, written after the child’s death at the age of 10. The piece is not mournful so much as wistful, and it ends with a beautiful series of musical sighs in the final pages.

Through the evening, the quartet lavished its usual high musical performance standards on the material. The two encores, however, reminded us just what was missing in the program. Two popular songs from the first half of the 20th century, also by women, demonstrated how much fun Kronos can stir up with its imaginative and unexpected arrangements of the familiar. “Smyrneiko Minore,” a Greek song taken from a 78-rpm recording from 1918 by Marika Papagika, was followed by a lovely, deadpan arrangement of the sinuous “Tabu,” by the Cuban composer Margarita Lecuona. Both brought a big smile.

Harvey Steiman


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