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The Friends of Chamber Music and UMKC’s Conservatory of Music and Dance jointly presented the Parker Quartet their third concert of the new Music Alliance Series on Saturday at White Recital Hall. Fresh from a number of accolades, including the prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award for 2009–11 resulting in a number of exciting residencies and a 2010 Grammy Nomination for Best Chamber Music Performance, the ensemble came to Missouri as part of a series of master classes and concerts at several of the University of Missouri campuses. A youthful group—it’s questionable if any have reached age thirty—the Parker Quartet took to the stage offering a balanced program of string quartet repertory. Bookending their program with Romantic staples by Dvořák and Mendelssohn, the exquisite performances of more modern works by György Kurtág and Paul Hindemith were where the quartet really shone.

Opening their program with four selections from Dvořák’s Ohlas písní [Echo of Songs] (the string quartet arrangement of selections from his earlier song cycle, Cypřiše [Cypresses]), the audience was treated to pristine intonation in the pastoral, folksong-inspired suite. A late addition to the program, the fourth Dvořák movement programmatically titled “Nature lies peaceful,” broke from the similar textures and tempi of the first three movements becoming the most engaging of the set. My only complaint here, as in moments of the first and second movements, was the use of an overly-bright tone color from first violinist Daniel Chong. For certain moments, I wished his tone could have been darker and less contrasting to the rest of the ensemble.

The quartet followed the Dvořák set with Hommage à Mihály András: Twelve Microludes by Hungarian composer György Kurtág. Before the performance, second violinist Karen Kim took a moment to explain that the Kurtág miniatures were all about color and gesture, with some of the microludes comprising only a single gesture. The twelve succinct pieces explored a range of emotional states from somber to bold to humorous as each miniature contemplated a tone from an ascending chromatic scale.

The shortest of the set at twenty seconds, the fourth microlude explored a single gesture shared among the ensemble. A sophisticated level of investment was displayed by violist Jessica Bodner. Playing only two notes, her face cycled through a range of musical/emotional states as the other members of the ensemble played during her rests. It was thrilling to see and a rarity to find on a concert stage. The longest microlude—the fifth—lasted just over two minutes. Sensitive, delicate, and, at times, exceedingly beautiful, chords and dissonances were sustained in waves. A range of exotic string techniques permeated the set including: harmonica-esque pedal tones in the sixth spiced with Lydian scale fragments, a series of lovely pale glissandi in Daniel Chong’s first violin part in the ninth that quickly took on a humorous character, an exploration of impeccable ensemble col legno playing in the tenth, and somber, sustained harmonies deftly lead by second violinist Karen Kim in the eleventh. A challenge for those unaccustomed, as evidenced by the exasperated sighs emanating from older gentleman next to me, but this music was certainly rewarding for those willing to listen.

Composed in 1921, Hindemith’s five movement String Quartet No. 4 immediately brought to mind imagery of the post-WWII era. The opening fugato was plaintive and languid at times, while Chong’s bright tone color reappeared, working much better in this context than the Dvořák. The star of this piece was Kee-Hyun Kim’s cello playing. In the fugato, the cello double-stops achieved a rich, almost brass-like timbre. In the third movement, “Ruhige Viertel,” the cello’s quarter-note pizzacati underpinned beautiful antiphonal melodic figures in the violins and viola. The fourth movement saw Kim execute an impressive solo passage of neo-Baroque cello writing that sounded like a highly-condensed Bach cello suite.

Mendelssohn’s Quartet No. 4 in E Minor opened with a similar character to the famed E Minor Violin Concerto. Chong executed an impassioned violin solo while parts of Kim’s first solo passage were buried under the rest of the ensemble. Latter parts of the Mendelssohn were full of deft ensemble playing and passionate Romanticism. The piece was certainly beautiful, but I found myself thinking the most striking moments belonged to the first half of the program.

It’s not that the Parker Quartet was wanting in their performance of their Romantic selections— these were passionate, thoughtful, invested performances. The fact remains that there are a thousand quartets that could program Dvořák and Mendelssohn and play them well. There are not many, however, who would choose to devote half of a subscription series concert to twentieth-century gems and inject their performances with the same passion, thought and investment. Here’s hoping the Parker Quartet continues to deliver these kind of performances as they continue to build what will surely be an exciting career.

REVIEW:
The Friends of Chamber Music and UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance
Conservatory Artist Series: Music Alliance Concert Series
Parker Quartet
Saturday, January 22, 2011
White Recital Hall, James C. Olsen Performing Arts Center
4949 Cherry St, Kansas City, MO
For more information visit conservatory.umkc.edu or www.chambermusic.org

Photos by Janette Beckman

By Topher Levin

Classical Editor and Contributor

Christopher (Topher) Levin is a composer, pianist, music theorist, and music blogger based in Kansas City, MO. His compositions have been performed at music festivals across the US and in Europe. He has spent two summers in Paris, France studying music at the Ecole Normale de Musique through the EAMA program. His trio for clarinet, piano, and percussion is published in the SCI Journal of Scores.

Topher holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (M.M.) in music theory and (M.M.) in composition and from James Madison University in Virginia (B.M.) in composition. Primary composition teachers have included John S. Hilliard, Paul Rudy, Zhou Long, James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Claude Baker, Narcis Bonet, Michel Merlet, and João Pedro Oliveira. His piano teachers have included Patricia Brady and Karen Kushner. Topher maintains a piano studio of 22 students.

Having recently completed a Master's thesis on the beautiful complexities of Chinary Ung's trio, Spiral I, Topher turned his writing attention to the more informal blogging medium. He has taken to it quite well, sharing posts on strange and wonderful music and art found across the web with a modest but growing number of blog followers. He looks forward to writing for KCM and sharing with its readers the stories of all the amazing musicians performing in Kansas City.