Friction Quartet Synthesizes Music with Painting

Towards the end of last year, the Friction Quartet of violinists Otis Harriel and Kevin Rogers, violist Taija Warbelow, and cellist Doug Machiz, released Counter Paint: The Art of Fugue, the result of an interdisciplinary collaborative project involving elements of classical music, collaborative painting, graphic notation, and improvisation. (The recording of this album took place prior to the debut of violist Lucia Kobza in December of 2019.) The project was developed by Friction working with composer Danny Clay and pianist Pascal Le Boeuf. As might be guessed, this content appears to be too “far out” for Amazon.com; so the best place to find the album is on the Bandcamp home page for the Friction Quartet. The entire composition is slightly more than ten minutes in duration, but it definitely makes for engaging listening.

Cover of the album being discussed (from the Bandcamp home page for the Friction Quartet)

Le Boeuf has had past interest in collaborative approaches to painting with groups of musicians, while Clay had previously explored a “mass production” infrastructure for his composition 27 Overtures. The two of them engaged 34 composers and musicians to co-author a piece based on 27 canvases, each limited to only four colors: red, yellow, green, and blue. One of those canvases appears on the “album cover” (scare quotes because the album is only available from Bandcamp for download or streaming). Each color would be associated with one of the quartet instruments.

The “fugue concept” arose from the requirement that the painters were asked either to develop a musical subject based on Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 133, known as the “Grosse Fuge,” or to expand upon the subject of another painter. The result was four movements, all less than three minutes in duration and each named after one of the four colors. Since none of the movements used conventional notation, the Friction players had to develop their own techniques for interpreting what the painters created.

The result amounts to a refreshingly vigorous approach to the dual semantics of the verb “play.” One the one hand this involves what the musicians need to do with their instruments when confronted with unconventional parts to interpret; but at the same time it also invokes a ludic approach to that strategy of interpretation. Those familiar with Beethoven will also have the opportunity to “play hide-and-seek” with motifs that can be found in Beethoven’s Opus 133.

As is often the case in Clay’s projects, there is a clear “fun factor” in this music, which can be shared by both the performers and the listeners. The more adventurous may wish to develop a listening experience in which the “Beethoven source” interleaves with the four movements of “Counter Paint” (along with a “bonus track” identified as “End Credits”). At the very least, this is a listening opportunity that is likely to distract from the current trials of living under COVID-19 conditions.