Calidore Quartet’s Third Appearance with SFP

Calidore String Quartet members Ryan Meehan, Estelle Choi, Jeffrey Myers, and Jeremy Berry (from their SFP event page)

Last night the Calidore Quartet returned to Herbst Theatre for their third recital presented by San Francisco Performances (SFP). In reviewing my archives, I was happy to discover that I had encountered both of their previous visits, beginning with their debut in January of 2019. That was a Great Artists and Ensembles Series program, which they shared with pianist Inon Barnatan, presenting a program devoted entirely to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. (Bach never wrote a string quartet; but their “orchestral support” to Barnatan’s keyboard work could not have been more engaging.)

That program began with Calidore on its own playing six of the pieces collected in the BWV 1080 The Art of Fugue, five four-voice fugues and one two-voice canon. That interest in fugues returned with their second appearance the following October, which included fugal writing by both Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven. The latter was the “grand finale” of the program Beethoven’s Opus 133 “Große Fuge.”

I am happy to report that the musicians that returned to Herbst last night were the same ones I had previously encountered in 2019. The quartet still consists of violinists Jeffrey Myers and Ryan Meehan, violist Jeremy Berry, and cellist Estelle Choi; and their ensemble work remains consistently engaging. This time, however, Beethoven was selected to begin the program with his Opus 74 (“Harp”) quartet, composed in 1809 during what has is sometimes known as the composer’s “middle period.” As that title suggests, the music involves an engaging interplay between arco and pizzicato bowing; and Calidore could not have done a better job of delivering that interplay.

This “Beethoven favorite” was complemented at the other end of the program with music that I was encountering for the first time (which probably could be said of just about everyone else in the audience). Erich Wolfgang Korngold is best known for the music he composed for many of the Hollywood films directed by Max Reinhardt in the thirties. He won an Oscar for his score for The Adventures of Robin Hood in 1938; and, given what was happening in Europe at that time, he was later known to say that Robin Hood saved him from the Nazis.

Last night Calidore performed his Opus 34 (third) quartet in D major, which he composed in 1945, the same year in which he wrote a violin concerto for Jascha Heifetz. During the first movement of the quartet, I could hear my composition teacher in the back of my head muttering “slimy chromaticism;” but the quartet became more engaging as it progressed. What struck me was the diversity of dispositions that permeated the entire composition, perhaps reflecting on the composer’s command of all those dispositions in his film work. Nevertheless, following that performance, the audience was reassured with a return to Beethoven: The encore selection was the final movement of the fourth of Beethoven’s Opus 18 quartets, composed in the key of C minor.

The contrast between Beethoven and Korngold was reflected in the choice of shorter works on either side of the intermission. The “Harp” quartet was followed, appropriately enough, by Jesse Montgomery’s “Strum.” I am tempted to say, “One good pluck deserves another;” but Montgomery’s arco writing tended to prevail over her pizzicato passages. Nevertheless, one could approach the first half of the program as a “then and now” contrast of plucked technique.

The intermission was followed by what might be called a “reflection” on the Beethoven offering. This was Franz Schubert’s D. 703 in C minor, given the simple title “Quartettsatz.” One could call this a dark reflection on the “lighter side” of Beethoven’s quartet. The music is relatively brief but could not have been more intense, and Calidore’s command of that intensity verged on the jaw-dropping.

Thus, in the return of Calidore’s third visit to SFP, I find myself already thinking about when they will return for their fourth engagement!