Julien Labro playing his bandoneon (photograph by Lennon Media, courtesy of San Francisco Performances)
Last night in Herbst Theatre, San Francisco Performances (SFP) continued its Great Artists and Ensembles Series, following the coupling of the Brooklyn Rider string quartet and mandolinist Avi Avital with a second performance combining another string quartet with a “completely different” instrument. This time the quartet was the Takács Quartet, whose current members are violinists Edward Dusinberre and Harumi Rhodes, violist Ricard O’Neill, and cellist András Fejér. Unless I am mistaken, this was their first SFP performance since O’Neill replaced violist Geraldine Walther. The “completely different” instrumentalist was Julien Labro, playing bandoneon with occasional shifts over to accordina. Labro made his SFP debut in October of 2017, sharing the stage with guitarist Jason Vieux, while the Takás Quartet, which has been visiting SFP since October of 2010, was appearing for the sixth time.
The program was framed by two new compositions scored for this combination of string quartet and bandoneon, commissioned by MusicAccord. The opening selection was “Circles,” composed by Bryce Dessner. This piece distinguished itself by making the case that there are still new innovative approaches to working with repetitive structures. Dessner himself describes his technique as a combination of “collective rhythm and individualist polyphony;” and it is that attention to polyphony that sets him apart from the more familiar approaches to textured repetition found in Philip Glass and John Adams.
The program concluded with the other commissioned work, “Clash,” composed by Clarice Assad. As one might guess, dissonance rules in this work, both structurally and expressively. The composer’s note for the program book states: “This piece explores states of discord such as struggle, disagreement, dispute, and division.” Since the music itself was scored at the height of pandemic conditions, one can appreciate the composer’s desire to reflect on those “states of discord.” Nevertheless, “Clash” is definitely engaging musical rhetoric, rather than soapbox oratory; and I would welcome opportunities for further listening to tease out the composer’s lexicon of dissonances.
The central part of the program was divided between Labro and the Quartet. The latter performed Maurice Ravel’s string quartet in F major. Ravel composed relatively little chamber music, and this quartet was one of his earliest efforts. It was written at a time when his relationship with Claude Debussy was becoming strained, and Debussy also composed relatively little chamber music. Ironically, many recordings of Ravel’s quartet, which was completed in 1903, are coupled with Debussy’s only string quartet (in the key of G minor), composed ten years earlier.
These days the Ravel quartet is treated by many listeners as a friendly old colleague. In that context it is worth noting the intensity that the Takás Quartet brought to their interpretation. Ravel seemed to delight in exploring the less familiar sonorities afforded by the quartet instruments. Last night’s interpretation was never afraid to explore the more percussive of those sonorities, endowing those passages with sharper edges than one usually encounters. This brought a freshness to the performance that almost defied the listener to take the experience as a familiar one.
Labro’s set included a composition by Dino Saluzzi entitled “Minguito,” coupled on either side to Labro’s own compositions. The latter of these pieces was, in turn, entitled “Astoración,” serving as an homage to Astor Piazzolla (the name most frequently associated with the bandoneon). However, Labro explained to the audience that the bandoneon could also serve as a substitute for an organ in a church too poor to afford an organ. To make his point, he presented a bandoneon interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 645 chorale fantasia on the first of the Schübler Chorales, “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” (wake, awake for night is passing). This amounts to three-voice polyphony, and Labro’s performance honored all three of those voices in equal measure.
All five musicians also took an encore with a composition by Heitor Villa-Lobos that I have yet to identify!
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