Ligeti, Farrin and Theofanidis: Parker String Quartet, Tanya Bannister (piano) Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater, Symphony Space, New York City, 1.03.2007  (BH)

 

 

 

György Ligeti: String Quartet No. 1, Métamorphoses Nocturnes (1953-54)

Suzanne Farrin: Empty Chariots (2007, world premiere)

Christopher Theofanidis: All dreams begin with the horizon (2007, world premiere)

 

Parker String Quartet

Daniel Chong, violin

Karen Kim, violin

Jessica Bodner, viola

Kee-Hyun Kim, cello

 

Tanya Bannister, piano

 

It can be tough for young musicians to carve out space among the thousands of people trying to do the same thing, but Concert Artists Guild has an excellent reputation for showing them in the best light, and building a commensurate audience for their work.  And one way for musicians to get attention is to focus on works for which they face no competition, such as the two noteworthy world premieres here. 

 

Not everyone can count the Arditti Quartet among her advocates, but composer Suzanne Farrin is building an impressive list of credits like these.  In opening remarks, she mentioned being influenced by Brahms’ Piano Quintet, and musing, “What do you say after that?”  (Fortunately she and others haven’t been too intimidated to try to answer the question.)  The title, Empty Chariots, refers to an image from the Oresteia, in which Clytemnestra decides to leave the safety of her carriage for a much darker choice.  The opening movement forms an image of desolation, using close chords sighing and leaning into each other.  A more agitated middle section follows, with the strings against stern, slicing chords in the piano.  Ultimately, the work ends with a hushed, sorrowful tone, acknowledging the story’s tragic outcome.  The Parker String Quartet and pianist Tanya Bannister deployed velvety tones and passion to transmit Farrin’s vision with a touching emotional urgency. 

 

Prefaced by well-chosen opening remarks, Ms. Bannister presented a second world premiere, All dreams begin with the horizon by Christopher Theofanidis, who currently teaches at Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory.  Written for solo piano, in honor of a couple celebrating a twenty-fifth anniversary, the title refers to the dreams recounted by the composer’s father.  Ravel’s “Ondine” was evoked by the trills and flourishes of the first movement, followed by a raw, brittle second section (“charged, erratic”) that was not unlike some of Ligeti’s piano etudes.  The slow third section, about love, had the simplicity of a children’s song crossed with the soft fire of a nocturne, but lest anyone be tempted to nod off, the final movement (“threatening”) offers a demonic, virtuosic finish.  Bannister showed that “sensitive” and “swagger” can coexist, perhaps in the way the composer intended to depict the happy guests of honor. 

 

The concert opened with Ligeti’s now-classic first string quartet, a marvel of shifting moods and textures from the mid-1950s, and conceived when it was still closer to Bartók than to Ligeti’s later works that brought him international fame.  Straddling both tonal and atonal worlds, it is highly entertaining, quizzical and dramatic, with unusual techniques side-by-side with more conventional ones.  The Parker String Quartet were equally incisive in the work’s wizened, gnarled textures and in the more consonant interludes, bringing out the strange juxtapositions, ambiguities and vibrant colors in every bar.  One could only marvel at these young players’ grasp of a sound world that two decades ago might have caused some musicians to flee in confusion. 

 

Bruce Hodges