Composer Samuel Adams (photograph by Nathan Phillips, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)
Last night Herbst Theatre provided the venue for the West Coast Premiere of “Quintet with Pillars,” recently completed by Samuel Adams and scored for string quartet and piano with digital resonance. In a concert presented by San Francisco Performances (SFP), pianist Joyce Yang made her second SFP appearance performing with the SFP Ensemble-in-Residence, the Alexander String Quartet (ASQ), whose members are violinists Zakarias Grafilo and Frederick Lifsitz, violist Paul Yarbrough, and cellist Sandy Wilson. Adams was present for the occasion, providing some introductory remarks about the overall structure and a performance of the “Pillars” theme.
The “Pillars” mark the beginning, middle, and end of the composition, establishing the boundaries of two parts, the second bringing clarity to the more nebulous setting of material in the first. There was no question that this was not music for casual listening. Nevertheless, even in the rather prolonged nebulous section, both Yang and ASQ brought a distinctive clarity to the materials that Adams engaged in his work. Adams was also kind enough to inform the audience that the entire piece ran for about half an hour, and a sense of overall duration often goes a long way to encouraging attention. In addition his limited use of electronic augmentation went a long way toward guiding listener attention across the full span of the composition. This was the sort of performance whose primary virtue was leaving the listener wondering when (s)he will next have an opportunity to listen to the piece, which is probably the best thing that can be said about any music encountered for the first time.
As Adams’ “Pillars” framed the heart of his composition, the entire piece was, in turn, framed by the two piano quartets of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The program opened with K. 478 in G minor and concluded with K. 493 in E-flat major. Grafilo was violinist for both performances. Both pieces were given energetic accounts. They were composed during Mozart’s time in Vienna, a time when he was also playing string quartets regularly with Joseph Haydn. He clearly appreciated the never-ending capacity for wit that Haydn could bring to his own compositions, and Mozart was clearly using these two pieces to let Haydn know that he had some of the same skills. Nevertheless, each of the quartets defines its own space of rhetorical variety; and last night’s performances gave as splendid an account of Mozart’s expressiveness as they had given to Adams’ imaginative capacity for invention.
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