The Jupiter String Quartet played The Friends of Chamber Music's International Chamber Music Series last Friday night, February 20 in a program of Mendelssohn, Adés and Beethoven.

Before I begin with the review, I have to take a few words to excoriate the cultured music loving citizens of Kansas City.  This wonderful concert was woefully under attended.  The Jupiter Quartet is one of a handful of young quartets on the brink of major stardom having already won the 2007 Cleveland Quartet Award, several major competitions and to cap it all off, they just won the Avery Fisher Career Grant.  People-it doesn't get much better than this for a quartet.  Furthermore, they performed a great program.  Shame on all the absent chamber music lovers for not being there.

Since the program began with a work by Felix Mendelssohn, I thought I'd share briefly what is happening in Mendelssohn scholarship today.  It seems that approximately one third of the works by Mendelssohn have never been published and have lain in libraries and storerooms of publishers since his death in 1847.  Stephen Somary has formed the Mendelssohn Project to get many of these works published and performed.  Mr. Somary has the theory that despite Mendelssohn's huge popularity at his death, his descent into the ranks of second rate composers (except for a relative handful of works) has been due to anti Semitism started by Richard Wagner and continuing through the Nazi era.  In 1936 with the Nazi total suppression of all works by Mendelssohn, his supporters sent huge amounts of his unpublished works and letters abroad for safekeeping and they were scattered all over the world during WWII.  According to Mr. Somary, there are unpublished operas, symphonies, concertos and choral works, all awaiting revival.  

While Mr. Somary has begun having concerts devoted to the unknown music of Mendelssohn, particularly his smaller chamber and vocal works, he has also included works by Mendelssohn's sister, Fanny, who may be the greatest 19th century composer who is relatively unknown to the public (as with many talented women composers, marriage and motherhood and the mores of the time greatly lessened her opportunities to compose and be performed).  I could easily write an entire article on this subject but for more information on the Mendelssohn Project, I would direct you to their fascinating website, www.themendelssohnproject.org .  I would also make mention that there seems to be a resurgence in the Mendelssohn Quartets recently with the Emerson and the Pacifica Quartets both releasing complete sets of them.

So, it was with great pleasure that I chose to review this concert for the opportunity to hear Mendelssohn's String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 13 in a live performance.  

The Jupiter String Quartet managed to balance soulful passion with high energy and rhythmic precision.  The Mendelssohn quartet (written when he was 18), often reminded me of a middle Beethoven quartet until suddenly, (for example in the third movement) Mendelssohn would break from the Beethoven mold and become quintessentially Mendelssohn's voice.  The third movement was one of Mendelssohn's patented scherzo movements reminiscent of the overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream or the scherzo from his Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20.  The Jupiter gave a beautifully balanced account of a work too rarely heard.

The second work, Arcadiana, Op. 12, composed by a young Thomas Adés, is basically a seven movement string quartet.  The movements are each titled and, according to the excellent program notes, "evokes an image associated with ideas of the idyll, vanishing, vanished, or imaginary".  What I heard was a young composer showcasing all the string instrument parlor tricks he could imagine.  As far as I am concerned, a collection of string special effects doesn't make for a coherent or enjoyable piece of music no matter the programmatic allusions given to each movement.  It's like a child shouting "Watch me do my special trick".  A lot more emphasis on musical values and less emphasis on special effects would have been most welcome.  I would instead have liked the time spent on another rarely heard Mendelssohn quartet.  On the other hand, I spoke to a fellow concert-goer at intermission, Evan, aged 10, who pronounced the work, "Awesome!"  So what do I know?!   Maybe it's a generational thing.

The highlight was the middle of the great Rasumovsky Quartets by Beethoven, specifically the String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59, No. 2.  It is in this work, in the third movement, that Beethoven uses the Russian tune made famous in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov.  This was a great performance of a great work.  I have several recordings of this work at home.  Some are more leisurely and glowingly romantic.  Some are more hard-edged.  The Jupiter Quartet managed to be both at just the right times.  From the sweet sounds of the first violin down to the highly assertive cellist, the Quartet was focused on delivering an intense account of the work without sacrificing any of its beauty.  They received lusty "Bravos!" and a well-deserved standing ovation at the conclusion. 


REVIEW:
The Friends of Chamber Music
Jupiter String Quartet
Friday, February 20, 2009
Folly Theater
12th and Central, Downtown Kansas City, MO
www.chambermusic.org 

By Lee Goodman

Classical Contributor (Past writer)