GRAMMY Award-winning Parker Quartet scored three home runs Sunday night at Newport’s Breakers Mansion. Currently Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University, their three-work offering for Newport offered a snapshot of their artistic mission and vision. Opening with a work from their 2022-23 Beethoven Project and closing with their current season Schubert Project exploring the late chamber music of the composer, they placed in the center a work they commissioned from Paul Wiancko, cellist of the Kronos Quartet and no stranger to Newport Classical Summer Festival.
Beethoven’s String Quartet in A Major Opus 18 No. 5 is from a set of six written most likely in 1798-1800 (though a sketch for the Andante of No. 5 exists from 1794-5), with the set finally published in two volumes in 1801. No original manuscripts exist for any of the quartets, save for an earlier version of the F major quartet that Beethoven in his own words:
“…made some substantial changes to it. Only now have I learned how to write quartets”
(letter dated 1801 to Carl Ferdinand Amenda, a violinist, composer, and friend of Beethoven)
A key feature of the A Major quartet is its structural affinity to Mozart’s K.464 quartet, also in A Major, which Beethoven studied and copied during the time he was working on Opus 18. The Parker Quartet performance exhibited the playful exuberance of this quartet, conveying the energy of passages which propelled forward in contrast with those requiring the most delicate nuancing of phrasing and dynamics. The four individuals seemed absorbed in sculpting their own parts, yet as a group they functioned as an aesthetic unity, also displaying technical precision of the highest magnitude. Their flawless dynamic control rendered Beethoven’s playful tossing of themes and contrapuntal motives in a most natural and relaxed manner, allowing one to revel in this less familiar side of Beethoven’s oeuvre, devoid of the dark brooding of the works that defined his growing deafness and the depression and moodiness that accompanied it.
One cannot leave this Beethoven performance without remarking on the sheer beauty of the playing of the more tender themes and motives of the work, in particular the theme and variations of the Andante and the expressive chorale like second theme of the finale. A casual glance at Beethoven’s sketchbooks reveals that Beethoven worked with small cellular motifs and motivic themes derived from them. His obsession with these caused their appearance not only throughout works, but also across them. This final theme of Opus 18 No 5 has appeared before: in the opening of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E Major Op 14 No 1, or quoted in full with its contrapuntal treatment in the ‘Pathétique’ Sonata in C Minor Op 13 (the contrapuntal section of the third movement Rondo), both of these works written in the same time period as the string quartet.
Paul Wiancko’s short six- movement Strange Beloved Land is based on documentary films that his father produced exploring Yugoslavia. Having written it during his father’s final days, Wiancko described the premiere as “one of the great honors of my life. In the healing stage, in the mourning process for my father, it was completely cathartic, the most therapeutic musical process I could possibly imagine.” ~ 2023 San Francisco Classical Voice
The opening movement Descent is defined by a long downward slide in the violin against a plucked pizzicato bass with rich chordal sonorities provided by the other instruments, while the second movement An Exact Account uses the same elements but with more forward motion propelling the music to a completely plucked middle section of incessant patterns along with some wood slapping and tapping, contrasted with a lyric melody high in the violin. Withered and Gone, Closed Doors, Spring Dance, and Onwards (Goats in the Road) flow one into the other, beginning with a unison chant-like melody bearing the traits of Slavonic chant of the Eastern Orthodox churches. The ensuing harmonization preserves the ancient sense of the chant while using more modern sounds. The straight pure tone creates a strong contrast with the next movement exhibiting a rich and lush texture, with wide chord voicing and warm vibrato from the ensemble. The dance movement propels forward in a steady rhythmic pulse that again brings in tapping and slapping sounds. The final movement depicting the goat-herding recalls the opening movement, with the pizzicato bass under a melodic line carried by the second violin while the first violin returns to the long slide, now travelling upward.
Schubert’s massive and final Quartet in G Major D. 887 is symphonic in scope, yet with the introspective intimacy and depth comparable to the late quartets of Beethoven, which he idolized. He penned it in 1826 the first published edition came out in 1851 as Opus 161, well after the composer’s death in 1828. Despite being considered a staple of the quartet repertoire, this piece is seldom heard in concert halls. Kudos to Parker Quartet for focusing an entire season to the late chamber music of the composer and for bringing this masterwork to the fore.
Parker Quartet’s sense of symphonic drama took the listener from a soft gentle piano to a dramatic and reverberant fortissimo from the very first chord with an almost exaggerated dynamic that raised one’s alertness through the opening bars with their dotted rhythms. They heightened the subsequent pianissimo tremolos with a subtle shift of the bow toward the fingerboard, a technique of playing called sul tasto, creating a mysterious ethereal sound that reminded one of the magical passages in the great symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler that were to come. The pristine playing and perfect balance of the ensemble gave exceptional beauty to individual lines and phrases but also kept a sense of the longer arc and sweep of the larger lines and structures of each movement. In the Scherzo, the foursome rendered rapid repeated notes with fluid precision and delicacy by skilled bowing, as expressive lines soared to the heights while maintaining a perfect balance among the lines. Violinist Daniel Chong offered the comment that a theme of the evening’s program was “taking risks.” That description aptly describes each of these three works from the point of view of their being masterful examples of risk-taking not only through their composition, but also in their performance. That combination made for an exhilarating and breathtaking evening, the final notes fading into a whisper that one wished would last forever but alas had to be broken by the final two flourishing chords and ensuing applause and bravos from grateful attendees.
Newport Classical Festival continues with a program of American Impressionism by resident festival artists, the Cerus Saxophone Quartet, and on Tuesday evening GRAMMY® Award-winning pianist Michelle Cann playing masterworks of Brahms, Clara, and Robert Schumann on the beautiful grounds of Newport’s iconic Castle Hill. A full schedule of artists, days and times may be found HERE.