Discovering a String Quartet Joining a Vocalist

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

It was only a little over a month ago that I first became aware of the Delgani String Quartet, whose members are violinists Anthea Kreston and Jannie Wei, Kimberlee Uwate on viola, and cellist Eric Alterman. The title of their latest album, released by Avie Records this past October 13, is Soul of Brazil; and it features, as a “guest artist,” vocalist and pianist Clarice Assad, who was born in Brazil. Since Assad is “at home” in both classical and jazz repertoires, this may be approached as a “crossover” album.

However, in my own classification techniques, I approached the new album as basically classical. It includes two compositions for string quartet. The earlier one is the sixth of the seventeen string quartets composed by Heitor Villa-Lobos. The other is a much more recent work by Assad entitled “Glitch,” whose structure is, in the composer’s words, “full of surprises.” These two pieces are framed on either side of the track-list by music arranged by Assad. The first four tracks are quartet arrangements of four songs by Antônio Carlos Jobim, and the final track is an arrangement of the Villa-Lobos song “Cair da tarde” (twilight song). I have to confess that all five of those songs were new to me, reminding me that, prior to this album, I had not encountered any art song composed by Villa-Lobos.

I also have to confess that, where songs are concerned, I always would like to have the texts at my disposal. Apparently, this was too much content to include in the booklet for this new album. For the most part, however, I found that I could often make “semantic conjectures” that had at least some viability on the basis of Assad’s vocal delivery of the words. On the more positive side, I found that I could enjoy the roller-coaster ride of “surprises” that Assad worked into her composition of “Glitch;” and I found the instrumental account by the Delgani players to ride right alongside Assad in their execution of her music.

Hopefully, I shall be able to learn more about the Delgani repertoire in the near future.