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THE TOKYO STRING QUARTET @ CARAMOOR
International Music Festival
Chamber Music in the Venetian Theater
www.caramoor.org
Martin Beaver, violin
Kikuei Ikeda, violin
Kazuhide Isomura, viola
Clive Greensmith, cello Professor Josephine Reiter
August 6, 2006
While the Tokyo String Quartet has changed members since its beginning over thirty years ago, they continue to play with the precision, elegance and passion that have come to be their standard. Violist Kazuhide Isomura is a founding member and second violinist Kikuei Ikeda joined the ensemble in the mid-1970s. Formerly principal cellist of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Clive Greensmith joined the Tokyo Quartet in 1999. The newest member of the ensemble is Martin Beaver, first violinist—a position once held by Peter Oundjian, who is now Caramoor Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor.
The Sunday, August 6th, program offered something for everyone: the controlled passion of Mozart’s Dissonant Quartet; the very interesting A Way A lone, a programmatic work by Takemitsu in one-movement; and the marvelously lyric yet intense A Minor Quartet, Op. 51, No. 2 by Brahms
The Tokyo Quartet opened with a clean, crisp playing of Mozart’s C Major Quartet, K. 465, so named the “dissonant” because of the daring harmonies in the slow introduction to the first movement. It sounds as though it might be starting in the middle, and the mood is one of mystery and introspection; but not for long. The sunny, upward moving Allegro theme brings us back into the ordered Apollonian world of the composer’s mature ensemble writing Following the brisk opening sonata-allegro form, the quiet Andante cantabile in triple meter presented a lovely, quiet contrast.
The third-movement minuet’s restless trio defined the ternary (ABA) form with a storm-and-stress quality. The Finale returns more to the style of Franz Joseph Haydn, to whom Mozart dedicated six quartets written in Vienna between December of 1782 and January of 1785. The “Dissonant” is the last of the Haydn quartets. It is indicative of Caramoor’s tasteful programming to have included this important chamber work in 2006, the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth.
Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) wrote A Way A lone (the idiosyncratic spelling taken from James Joyce) for string quartet in one movement, the second in a series of pieces based on Finnegan’s Wake. It opened with a dramatic gesture and what followed sounded polytonal with increasing dissonances. A “wailing” sound in the middle was haunting and the two violins presented a rhythmically defined thematic idea in imitation toward the end.
It’s difficult to write about this late 20th-century work because it is based on Joyce’s circular, complex text and the rhythmic-harmonic language is far removed from Viennese classical or late 19th –century romanticism. Even so, if one simply listens to this music on its own terms (and not with our 18th and 19th-century “ears,” i.e., expectations), then the impression is akin to a spatial experience. The musical material seems to evolve freely from itself. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing this piece.
After destroying almost two dozen string quartets, Brahms wrote the two quartets published as Opus 51 in his fortieth year (1873). The Tokyo Quartet played the second of the set, Quartet in A Minor, Op. 51, No. 2, for the latter half of the program. This quartet reveals the romantic style at its best—the unashamed expression of feeling but never in excess. Goethe wrote that chamber music is a conversation among intelligent friends.
Accepting Goethe’s metaphor, the Tokyo Quartet had much to say in the Brahms A Minor sonata cycle. The opening Allegro non troppo movement features a wonderfully graceful second theme, which appears in the recapitulation with the first violin in dialogue with the second violin and viola over the pizzicato cello. A long, expressive melodic line, built on the interval of the second, frames a more harmonically unsettled middle section in the slow movement, which is the most serious and introspective of the cycle. Brahms substituted a Quasi Menuetto, Moderato—Allegretto vivace for the expected Scherzo in the third movement. This extraordinary movement, complex in its rhythm and daring harmonically, gave the Tokyo players the opportunity to exploit the Brahmsian contrasts, e.g., between the descending elusively triple menuet theme and the dramatic, polyphonic trio in duple meter. The piece ends with a bold, syncopated sonata-rondo.
Despite the hot weather, the audience responded to this first-rate chamber music recital with enthusiastic applause. The Tokyo Quartet performs on “The Paganini Quartet,” a set of Stradivarius instruments named for the legendary virtuoso Niccolo Paganini, who acquired and played them during the 19th century, as the Caramoor program indicated. These superb instruments have been on loan to the Tokyo Quartet from the Nippon Music Foundation since 1995.
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