Afiara String Quartet. 7/20/2009.

Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall, Princeton University. Row 1, Balcony Left.

Quartet members: Valerie Li & Yuri Cho, violins; David Samuel, viola; Adrian Fung, cello.

Program
String Quartet Op. 18, No. 3 by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).
Cat O’ Nine Tails by John Zorn (b. 1953).
Crisantemi by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924).
String Quartet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 68 by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975).

The word Afiara is based on the Spanish verb that means trust, which is not a bad way to describe what quartet members look for in one another. This group, formed in San Francisco, consists of Canadians. Per the program, they have won quite a few awards (not sure how prestigious those awards are) and will be a resident quartet at Julliard.

The Beethoven quartet was written quite early in the composer’s music career (we heard Op. 95 last week). Writing this a couple of days after hearing it, I find out to my dismay I don’t remember much of it, except that it is a more equal partnership among the four players – even though there was no doubt what the principal instrument was. The four movements are (i) Allegro; (ii) Andante con moto; (iii) Allegro; and (iv) Presto.

Zorn is supposedly a well-known jazz composer (I of course didn’t know that). Fung described the music a bit, although it still didn’t prepare the audience for the interesting sounds the instruments produced. Oftentimes they make sounds that a traditional string player would say “oops” to. These include playing on the “wrong” part of the string, quickly sliding the fingers up and down, applying the right amount of pressure to make a grating noise. I was quite taken for the first few minutes, but then thought to myself 12 minutes of this was a bit much, unless the intention is to make the listener cringe, in which case it succeeds.

I didn’t know Puccini wrote anything other than operas. Looking up Wikipedia, I see there is a long list of non-operatic works. I am embarrassed to say this is the first piece I heard. Chrysanthemum was written for his friend’s funeral. It was later retitled “elegy” for the commercial market. It was a nice 5 minute piece that I wouldn’t have associated with Puccini (again shows my lack of knowledge.)

I recall hearing another Shostakovich quartet a few years ago at Princeton, it was performed by the Bretano Quartet. Going back to my notes, that was a much later quartet (Op. 144). I remember that as being a very dark piece of music that was quite interesting and enjoyable. Tonight’s didn’t disappoint either, except it (again) reinforced my biggest gripe with quartets: can’t get away from the impression that it is solo violin with three string accompanists. On its own one may consider this a rather dark piece of music, but compared to Op.144 (which drove my expectations), it was downright sunny. It was written in a major key, at least.

It was an overall enjoyable concert. Sometimes I think they should give the second violin the more brilliant instrument so that part can be heard more clearly. The bass and viola acquitted themselves quite well, though.