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The Catalyst String Quartet in Review

The Catalyst String Quartet

Karla Donehew Perez, violin

Christopher Jenkins, viola

Karlos Rodriguez, cello

The American Bible Society; New York, NY

April 5, 2013

In sponsoring this superb concert by The Catalyst String Quartet in the Conference Center of The American Bible Society’s New York headquarters, Musica da Camara continued its policy of presenting performances in non-traditional concert venues. Even though the room was fairly large, the fact that there was no stage and both audience and performers were on the same level made for a more intimate chamber music experience. All the members of the quartet are top Laureates and alumni of the Sphinx Competition, an annual competition for young black and Latino string players. That the Sphinx Organization thinks highly of these players is shown by the fact that their quartet is called “A Sphinx Ensemble.”

First we heard “Sturm,” a work by one of the quartet’s violinists, Jesse Montgomery. Written in 2006 for string quintet, it was arranged for quartet in 2008 and again revised for The Catalyst String Quartet in 2012. Very well constructed, this was a great opener. The beginning melody, especially its first three notes, served as the basis for much of the work’s melodic material. And I loved the strumming pizzicati which permeated the piece. The performers’ rhythmic energy, their polyphonic clarity and tight ensemble–playing were to continue throughout the evening.

With spoken comments, Ms. Montgomery then introduced Osvaldo Golijov’s “Tenebrae.” She demonstrated the sound of sul ponticello (bowing close to the violin’s bridge which creates a glassy sound and emphasizes the higher harmonics) and told us that the score instructs her to tune the violin’s G-string down a third. The use of sul ponticello added to otherworldly character of this work, and the lowered G-string darkened the sound of the quartet–tenebrae is the Latin word for shadow. The quartet gave us a beautifully wrought, lucid and committed performance of this most moving composition. Each player shone, both as collaborators in a like-thinking ensemble and as lyric “soloists.” Both violinists, Karla Donehew Perez and Jesse Montgomery, spun out luscious melodies on their violin’s lowest string; violist Christopher Jenkins played what sounded like Hebraic chants with soulful mournfulness; and cellist Karlos Rodriguez sailed around the cello’s high register with ease. (He would attain stratospheric heights in the concert’s second half.)

The last work on the first half was one that few in the audience have heard in its entirety, Samuel Barber’s String Quartet, Opus 11. But most people are familiar with the arrangement for string orchestra of the quartet’s second movement, the “Adagio for Strings.” Surrounding this beloved lyrical movement are two much more dissonant and rhythmically complex pieces which the quartet played with as much assurance and ease as they did the lyrical adagio. I was very impressed by the many string colors that the quartet created. (Most memorable were the passages in the first and second movements played with little or no vibrato.) In fact I was very impressed by every aspect of the quartet’s playing on the first half of this concert.

But I was awed by their performance of Alberto Ginastera’s fiendishly difficult String Quartet No.2, Opus 26! This work makes incredible technical demands, and the Catalyst players were up to all of them. One marveled at their perfect sense of ensemble during the unison passages and complex rhythms of the first movement. During the second movement, one luxuriated in the luscious tone of violist Christopher Jenkins. The mysterious sounds of the third movement, marked Presto magico, were flawlessly produced by using string techniques such as glissandi, harmonics, col legno (touching the strings with the wooden part of the bow) and the aforementioned sul ponticello. During the fourth movement cellist Karlos Rodriguez essayed his instrument’s highest notes with abandon. The concert was brought to a thrilling conclusion by the wild final movement, aptly marked furioso.

We were then treated to a delightful encore, the quartet’s arrangement of a children’s song from Puerto Rico, “El Coqui.” The audience left smiling.

by Harry Saltzman for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas Concert Series in Review

Stephanie Griffin, viola, Cheryl Seltzer, piano

Music of Brady, Greenbaum, Babbitt, Milhaud, Pärt, and Shostakovich

Americas Society; New York, NY

March 20, 2012

Stephanie Griffin and Cheryl Seltzer; Photo Credit: Hiroyuki Ito

Stephanie Griffin, violist and founding member of the Momenta Quartet, and Cheryl Seltzer, pianist, founder, and co-director of the internationally renowned group Continuum, joined forces recently in recital at the Americas Society. This pairing of two intelligent and sensitive musicians led to dynamic and thought-provoking performances. Billed as featuring an homage to Milton Babbitt, I found the concept of the entire program to be an homage by performers and composers to those who touched their lives. In the extensive program notes, Ms. Seltzer writes of her friendship and admiration for Babbitt, her teacher Milhaud, and the honor of having premiering a Pärt work with the composer present. Ms. Griffin writes of her close friendship with Greenbaum, and Shostakovich’s tribute to Beethoven. This information gave the performances special meaning, and the performers demonstrated the sincerity of their words by their passionate playing of the works.

“Three or Four Days After the Death of Kurt Cobain” by Canadian composer Tim Brady (b. 1956) opened the program. This work brought to this listener’s mind the “Love-Death” music of George Crumb’s “Makrokosmos”, with “Smells like Teen Spirit” taking the place of Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu. The passing of the thematic material between the two players was done seamlessly and made what might have seemed an odd idea very effective. “Double Song for Viola Sola: In memoriam Milton Babbitt” from Matthew Greenbaum (b.1950) followed. This work could be described as two voices speaking simultaneously, one voice quiet and the other much more assertive. Ms. Griffin took this ingenious concept and gave an assured performance, capturing clearly the distinctive voices and making child’s play of the technical demands. I’m sure Babbitt would have heartily approved of the piece and the performance.

Written in 1950, eight years before his famous (and controversial) article “Who Cares if You Listen?”in High Fidelity magazine, Milton Babbitt’s “Composition for Viola and Piano” is a piece very much worth hearing. Babbitt (1916-2011), the mathematician, used permutations of various intervals in a colorful manner, with mercurial interplay of ideas between the viola and the piano. This is a work of equals, and the performers were outstanding–both as individuals and as a duo. Played with energy and commitment, this performance was a highlight of the evening and should serve as an impetus for the audience members to explore further Babbitt works.

“Quatre Visages”, written in 1943 by Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), is a musical depiction of four imaginary ladies in different locales. Ms. Griffin and Ms. Seltzer captured the jazzy charm of “La Californienne” (which one should note had a distinct French flavor), the mournful outlook of the time in “La Bruxelloise”, and the jaunty optimism of “La Parisienne”. I found “The Wisconsonian” to be more frenetic than the “bustling” that the program notes suggested, but this was my only reservation in an otherwise delightful performance.

After intermission, Ms. Seltzer played Arvo Pärt’s “For Alina”, a short piece written for a young Estonian girl. Pärt (b.1935), after abandoning serial and other modern techniques, adopted an approach that he refers to as “tintinnabuli”. “For Alina” was one of his first works in this new style. While not technically demanding in a virtuosic sense, it nonetheless requires considerable skill for the performer to produce the bell-like sound without a harsh percussiveness. Ms. Seltzer gave a brief performance (the performer often repeats the 15 bars of written music ad lib.) that showed her complete involvement and attentiveness to the finest of details.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), like Mahler before him, wrote music with strong autobiographical meaning and content. His final work, the Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147–written in the last year of his life–is no exception. This masterpiece could be considered Shostakovich’s final ‘letter’ to the world, which was only ‘read’ in its entirety after his death. Ms. Griffin and Ms. Seltzer gave a performance to remember; one could sense that the aura of Shostakovich himself was in the room guiding the players. The biting, sarcastic, and grotesque were all there, along with the quiet despair and the poignant. The finale, which has elements of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, was said by Shostakovich himself to be in memory of Beethoven. Ms. Griffin’s and Ms. Seltzer’s persuasive playing did honor to the final musical words of a great composer. The audience responded with well-deserved and extended applause, calling the performers back for multiple bows. One trusts that Ms. Griffin and Ms. Seltzer will pair up often in the future; both are wonderful musicians and make a dynamic duo.

by Jeffrey Williams for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

2010-2011 Concert Season

Tokyo String Quartet (Martin Beaver, Kikuei Ikeda, violins, Kazuhide Isomura, viola, Clive Greensmith, cello)

92^nd Street Y; New York, NY

October 30, 2010

With pianist Juho Pohjonen

January 22, 2011

With pianist Aleksandar Madzar

March 5, 2011

With pianist Robert Levin

Orion String Quartet (Daniel and Todd Phillips, violins, Steven Tenenbom, viola, Timothy Eddy, cello)

February 24, 2011

Mannes College of Music; New York, NY

This season, “late” Beethoven has been a strong presence on New York’s concert scene, and notable performances of his last string quartets were given by two of today’s most acclaimed chamber groups: the Tokyo and Orion String Quartets. Both have lived with these works throughout their careers, and, in these performances, again brought to them the consummate tonal, musical and ensemble perfection born of years of study and world-wide performances. Among the Tokyo’s New York appearances was a six-concert cycle to benefit the AIDS epidemic; the Orion presented a similar series to the City as a free gift to celebrate the new Millennium.

The Tokyo is performing the complete Beethoven cycle over four years at the 92^nd Street Y, where it is Ensemble-in-Residence, devoting each season to one “period” of his works; this is the final year. For this series, the players are adding a new element to the programs: they are combining the quartets with important keyboard compositions of the same period to give audiences a wider perspective of Beethoven’s work. Their four guest pianists represent different nationalities, generations and styles, and include two extraordinarily talented young newcomers: Juho Pohjonen from Finland in his 92^nd Street Y debut in the first concert, and Aleksndar Madzar from Belgrade in his New York debut in the second. Pohjonen, a multiple international prize-winner, chose an unusual calling card: Beethoven’s final set of Bagatelles, Op. 126. These six perfect miniatures look deceptively simple and are not outwardly effective, but require utmost control, sensitivity and subtlety. With remarkable concentration, flexibility, color and nuance, Pohjonen brought out their contrasting character, from dreamy ambiguity to fiery assertiveness, leaving an impression of superior pianism and communicative power.

Madza’s international career was launched when he won the 1996 Leeds Piano Competition. A fine pianist with a splendid but unobtrusive technique, his unfailingly beautiful, singing tone and distinctive lyrical gifts found full expression in the Sonatas Op. 109 and 110, and he handled the mood and tempo changes admirably.

In the third concert, the renowned American pianist, fortepianist and scholar Robert Levin played the Piano Sonata Op. 101 with his customary clarity and nobility; the Quartet’s cellist, Clive Greensmith, joined him for a lovely, expressive performance of the Cello Sonata Op. 102, No. 1.

The Tokyo performed the Quartet Op. 130 with the original Finale, the thorny, daunting “Great Fugue,” and the Quartets Op. 127, 132, and 135. They will close the series with Op. 131 in the fourth concert on May 7; their guest will be the brilliant young Russian pianist Kirill Gerstein in Beethoven’s last Sonata, Op. 111, and the Bagatelles Op 119.

The Orion Quartet is Ensemble-in-Residence at the Mannes College of Music, where it presents an annual concert series. Its most recent program featured Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 131, and Brahms’ Op. 51 No. 2, to show how Brahms continued Beethoven’s legacy and where he diverged from it. However, these two works revealed a sort of inverse legacy: Beethoven’s free, continuous seven-movement structure seemed far more innovative than Brahms’ traditional four movements.

The performance, as always, was distinguished by its technical and ensemble perfection, its tonal and rhythmic balance, its control, spontaneity, and its deeply felt expressiveness.

Both halls were filled to the rafters and the ovations would not stop.

by Edith Eisler for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

SoNoRo Festival Bucharest

Ensemble Raro:Diana Ketler, piano;

Alexander Sitkovetsky, violin;

Razvan Popovici, viola;

Bernhard Naoki Heidenborg, cello;

Roxana Constantinescu, guest mezzo-soprano

Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall

New York, NY

February 16, 2010

Formed in 2004, Ensemble Raro (named after Master Raro, the wise old arbiter of Schumann’s imaginary Davidsbündler) must be one of the best, most versatile young groups before the public. Resident Ensemble of the SoNoRo Festival, founded in 2006 by violist Popovici, the group appears in concert halls world-wide; this was its New York debut. SoNoRo has released two recordings, and fosters living composers through performances, and young musicians through scholarships.

The players of Ensemble Raro, who also pursue individual, solo, chamber music and teaching careers, are splendid technically, musically and communicatively, making this a true collaboration of equals. Although they were born and trained in different countries, their rapport is so close that they seem to share and anticipate one another’s whims and wishes; the strings’ tone, which is warm and expressive, blends together without losing its variety or individual timbre, and their intonation is impeccable, as they take over lines imperceptibly on the same note. Totally immersed in the music, they never call attention to themselves by sound or gesture. The only flaw, endemic to this combination, is the balance, which favors the (wide-open) piano, despite pianist Ketler’s obvious sensitivity.

Their program featured two novelties by Enescu and Peteris Vasks. Enescu’s Sept chansons de Clément Marot combines Romanian folk melodies with medieval modes and elegant French sophistication. Mezzo-soprano Constantinescu and pianist Ketler brought out the songs’ different character and moods beautifully. Born in 1946, Peteris Vasks gained recognition in the 1990s and has received several European honors and prizes. His Piano Quartet (2000-2001) is extremely difficult and almost unremittingly intense. The strings often alternate with the piano in textures featuring solos, duets, chordal unisons, long glissandi, double stops, and drones. Some of its six movements flow together, some are obsessively repetitive, and all have powerful climaxes (Vasks calls one “a black hole”). The Raro Ensemble introduced it in Germany and England; in this New York premiere, their performance was committed and authoritative.

The players’ youthful romanticism showed to fine advantage in a wonderfully spontaneous, exuberant, expressive but unsentimental performance of Schumann’s Piano Quartet. But the playing of the slow movement of Brahms’ C Minor Piano Quartet as an encore was even more impressive for its deeply felt inwardness.