COOKING UP CHAMBER MUSIC BY BAKING BREAD – www.artssf.com March 15, 2010

And Lessons in Making Laundry Lists Sing  

By Paul Hertelendy

BURLINGAME, CA—Stranded back east with weather and flight-cancellation problems, San Francisco composer Dan Becker missed a local performance of his “Time Rising” for string quartet, performed on pi-Day (March 14) before a sold-out house of the Music at Kohl chamber series.
His 18-minute collage “Time Rising” (2009) is both clever and appealing. The first movements present three different ingredients feeding into the whole, presented integrally in the fourth movement, much longer than the other three combined. The inspiration was unique: Becker got the idea for the format baking bread. Ingredients whetted my appetite: First, long-held chords and gentle soft sonorities—think Arvo Pärt. Then a minimalist chattering section, with the musicians tapping feet to keep track of the clickety-clacky vehicle careening at Toyota speeds. Finally, modal melodies.
All this blended beautifully into the finale’s energy-charged resolution reflecting some influence of John Adams’ polyrhythmic style. This was incisive, even abrasive, and a mite combative. What emerged was dramatical-theatrical  in the various perusals and overlays. A lot of the leadership went to the violist, in this case an animated Jodi Levitz, whose strong personality was nicely fleshed out.
Becker used another unorthodox creative method, parceling out small fragments of three measures or less and leaving them  with the Ives Quartet for assimilation/digestion (and also leaving the musicians in total bewilderment). Only after the full “loaf” was served could the musicians grasp the sense of it all.
The Ives (string) Quartet is a S.F. Peninsula institution, two of its members stemming from the founding in 1983.  It was absolutely inspired engaging a fifth, Jerome Simas, for the late Brahms Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115; one felt that Simas could make even a laundry list sing with his wind instrument. The crux of it was his rich vibrato illuminating the Adagio movement. The same wondrous segment at its midpoint has the clarinet going off in a distinctly klezmer mode, with considerable metric freedom, quite different from the Hungarian and gypsy influences for which Brahms is noted. The impulsive runs and decorative connecting tissue all suggested that more distant style developed and maintained in European Jewish communities.
Overall, Brahms’ clarinet pieces, like his viola sonatas, have been termed “autumnal,” mostly displaying the mellow lower registers.
Simas’ play made an effective contrast against the Ives foursome, the latter playing with an intensity that leans and leads toward grainy sound textures. But the Ives shows strength at the top and bottom via violinist Bettina Mussumeli and cellist Stephen Harrison. And much to her credit, second violinist Susan Freier blends closely with Mussumeli.
The Ives Quartet led off with Mozart’s popular “Hunt” Quartet, K. 458, where all four voices came effectively into play.
The Music at Kohl series uses the historic Kohl Mansion, built in 1916, notable for the high-ceilinged banquet hall (now concert hall) stylistically suggesting that it may have been designed with King Henry VIII and his Tudor court in mind. Despite the unhappy personal history of builder-founder Frederick Kohl, the mansion is now a welcoming Peninsula environment for concerts, wedding receptions, and Mercy High School classes. And its concerts are decidedly up-close; sit in the front row, and you feel you should be reaching over to turn pages for the musicians.
Music at Kohl, Kohl Mansion, Burlingame, with varied chamber concerts. For info: (650) 762-1130.