Alan Cooper reviews: Smith Quartet with Joby Burgess
sound in association with Woodend Music Society and Woodend Arts Ltd
Smith Quartet with Joby Burgess, Percussion
Ian Humphries and Rick Koster: Violins | Nic Pendlebury: Viola | Dierdre Cooper: Cello
Woodend Barn, Banchory
Friday, 07 November 2014
Professor Pete Stollery who introduced last night’s performance was delighted to welcome back the Smith Quartet to the sound Festival. We remember their generous contribution in 2010 to the Festival’s “minimalist inspired weekend”. This time they brought with them another Festival regular, ace percussionist Joby Burgess. I remember in particular his performance in the Lemon Tree. The Woodend Barn programme was part of a forthcoming tour supported by the Arts Council, England. It featured one piece each for the Quartet alone and one for Joby Burgess on his own as well as two works that were a special collaboration fusing String Quartet and Percussion together in strikingly brilliant amalgamation.
The opening work, String Quartet No. 10 (Revised version 2013) by Kevin Volans was the piece for the Quartet alone. Volans was born in South Africa but has spent a large part of his career outside of that country though he is still thought of as South Africa’s most prominent composer. He studied in Cologne with Karlheinz Stockhausen and is thought of as a leading post minimalist composer. He is also said to be associated with the New Simplicity School. Some aspects of each of these varied influences could be heard in String Quartet No. 10. The opening movement featured high energy minimalist scurrying strings although moving beyond mere repetition, the subtlest changes in entry or pace by the various instruments produced all kinds of fascinating rhythmic cross patterns – a bit like a kaleidoscope in sound. The high energy playing was punctuated from time to time by moments of stasis. A second movement followed in which for a considerable time the cello held a high pitched pedal note while the violin produced little brushstrokes of sound like yelps. The viola played little turns of bowed notes which were soon replaced by the same notes strummed as if on a guitar. Later the violins and viola held high harmonics while it was the cello which added the little dabs of sound colour. The influence of minimalism in the music was strong as was the importance of timbre derived perhaps from Stockhausen and although this music sounded not at all like Arvo Pärt there was something of his interest in music as pure sound in there too. This was paradoxically both the simplest and most complex of the pieces in Friday’s programme. An untutored listener could assume that this music with its held notes or repetitions would be very easy to play. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We were hearing the most astonishing virtuoso playing from the Smith Quartet. I could not even begin to count the beats as precisely as they did. One slip, one miscount and everything would fall apart.
Graham Fitkin is a British composer, pianist and conductor. His piece Distill was commissioned specially by the Smith Quartet and Joby Burgess. It began with the second violin and viola playing detached pizzicato notes for all the world as though it was starting to rain with just a few big drops landing on your head. The first violin and cello entered in turn and finally the percussion. It was interesting that in a sense the string players were treated as the percussion section while the tuned percussion, vibes, crotales and even gong were delivering the melodic content. This was a hugely entertaining and often very beautiful piece thanks especially to delicately played precision percussion.
Iannis Xenakis has a lot of hyphens in his CV. He is described as Greek-French, composer-theorist, architect-engineer, post-war, avant-garde. Though born in 1922 in Romania, he was brought up in Greece but fled to France in 1947 where he became a naturalised French citizen. His piece Psappha was for Joby Burgess alone. If Fitkin’s Distill had much delicacy in it Psappha had virtually none. That is not a negative criticism because it was eye-poppingly, ear-poppingly exciting. Drums including foot pumping bass drum, cymbals of several sorts, metal bars that sounded a bit like a cross between a marimba and a steel factory in full production were all assaulted with glorious crazy energy by Joby Burgess. It was a fantastic piece to watch as much as to listen to and it ended in a kind of explosion of percussive joy.
The final piece in the concert, Starry Night, was Steve Martland’s last composition; he died in May last year. There is an obvious reference in the title to the famous painting by Van Gogh but Martland wrote, “Rather, personal memories of Africa are recalled and, in particular, the sound of music and dancing both near and in the distance, all taking place under the vivid starry night sky”.
The Smith Quartet once again in splendid minimalist mode at the outset and Joby Burgess in full swing on marimba proved once again that String Quartet and percussion can be a magical combination. The spirit of dance ran all through this performance and it certainly lifted my spirits too. This was a great performance and there is more to come because the Smith Quartet will be in Aberdeen Art Gallery at 1pm on Saturday.
© Alan Cooper, 2014
