News

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.

Repeat Counts as Pleasure – San Francisco Classical Voice March 14, 2010

By Beeri Moalem

One of my favorite composition teachers once said, “Any buffoon can get a premiere. A real achievement is a repeat performance.”

Last May, I reviewed the Ives Quartet’s premiere of Dan Becker’s workTime Rising. At the time, I was intrigued by its unusual macro structure: three tiny movements — or “ingredients” — followed by a much longer movement: the final product. Hearing the Ives play the work again on Sunday, I knew what to expect, and this time I was struck by its rhythmic complexity and the slowly moving harmony — each first presented as ingredients, then folded into the final piece.

Violist Jodi Levitz explained, in Becker’s absence, that the composer initially thought of the piece as a metaphor for baking bread, so he gave the ingredients titles such as “flower,” “water,” and “yeast.” But after the fact, he opted instead to give them typical cheesy titles for minimalist music: titles such as “sky,” “wind,” and “wing,” with the final product being called “Fly.” (The capitalization patterns are the composer’s.) Only the piece’s overall title retains the original idea in the word “Rising,” as in rising dough.

Too often these days, classical music audiences are exposed to new pieces only once. Given the complexity of much of today’s music, that’s truly a shame. To fully appreciate a piece of music, a listener usually must undertake a long relationship with it; sometimes the relationship lasts a lifetime. This is why I was delighted to be assigned to review Time Rising a second time.

Becker’s music is relatively accessible, to begin with, but there’s still a wealth of complexity to indulge the ear, the brain, and the heart. Rhythms churn against each like complex engines. Levitz drew a metaphor of trains going in opposite directions, or spinning spokes on a wheel. The mechanical element is definitely present in the piece, but there’s also a biological stirring, like the pulse of blood or the activity in a beehive.

The complex rhythms that together create this bustling texture are difficult to execute by humans. The Quartet counts in threes, fours, fives, and whatnot, coalescing together on common multiples of the beats. (In the case of 3, 4, and 5, this would be every 60th beat, or: 4×15, 3×20, and 5×12.)

In a postconcert reception, Ives’ first violinist, Bettina Mussumeli, explained that the Quartet has already performed this piece at least six times. While it has gotten easier, she says, everyone still has to count like mad. “It’s really difficult for concentration,” she said. “When it clicks, I wonder why I ever thought it was hard. But if you stop counting, it’s impossible to get back on.”

Indeed, second violinist Susan Freier was visibly counting as if her life depended on it, grounding the ensemble with a rock-solid pulse.

Sometimes the melodic lines are only a 16th apart, which makes it easy to coalesce and play together. To paraphrase Mussumeli: “Suddenly we’re perfectly together … yet when we do have to play together, it’s much tougher.” A funny paradox, that.

Dough Rising Betwixt Mozart and Brahms

Time Rising was straddled by two standard-repertoire masterpieces of contrasting moods: Mozart’s “The Hunt” Quartet in B-flat Major, one of the brightest, most enjoyable pieces in the literature; and Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, a sad, introspective work. Most chamber music lovers have heard these pieces many more than two times and have a lengthy relationship with them.

The Mozart was tackled head-on as the outdoorsy, brassy piece that it is — perfect for the first springlike day of the year. Mussumeli’s crisply articulated anacrusis to the piece opened the concert with energetic confidence. Mozart is often handled with precious silk gloves, but the Ives Quartet held nothing back in its interpretation. The energy would sometimes slip into intonation or ensemble errors, but nothing that a little extra rehearsal won’t patch.

Cellist Stephen Harrison was playing a newly acquired 100-year-old Italian instrument, which sounded fabulous. Having heard the Ives Quartet at least five times now, I definitely noticed an improvement in the cello tone. A highlight came in the second movement, in one of those dear moments when Mozart dispenses with complex counterpoint and features a melody with a straightforward accompanimental pattern. These sections spotlight the melody, usually in the violin. When the cello receives the melody, however, the instance is that much more special. Harrison and his new cello shone through.

Although the Brahms is a heavy, often gloomy work, it somehow leaves the listener with a sense of contentment, like the peace of old age. Guest clarinetist Jerome Simas blended remarkably well (almost too well) with the strings. Somehow, the clarinet’s usually piercing tone sounded lost among the strings, though it emerged once in a while to make a melodic statement.

The concert was presented by Music at Kohl Mansion, in Burlingame, a terrific organization that regularly packs a sold-out crowd in front of its gorgeous, Gothic-style mantelpiece. Yet in the fireplace, instead of fire, burns the passionate flame of music.

Chamber Orchestra Commited to New Music – San Jose Classical Music Examiner March 4, 2009

By Beeri Moalem

Since its inception in 1991, the San Jose Chamber Orchestra (SJCO) has commissioned or premiered 75 new works. In an art form where only about six percent of the repertoire performed is contemporary (according to the League of American Symphony Orchestras’ annual report) this is quite an achievement in a genre obsessed with dead white men, mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Music Director Barbra Day Turner points out that this is a relatively recent phenomenon. “Historically, only contemporary works were performed.” Yet today, contemporary works are usually featured only when flanked by security war horses (i.e. as Brahms and Beethoven for the millionth time) that will keep the audience from fleeing the concert hall in case of modern music.

But Turner insists that “If new music is never played, music as a living art will die out.” How does an art-form expect to survive if it is fixated with the past and afraid of the present? The San Jose Chamber Orchestra, however, is not afraid to face the unknown. Every single concert in this year’s season features several works by living composers.

For their upcoming March 8th concert, the orchestra premieres Hyo-Shin Na’s Not the Object Alone, a composition for string quartet and string orchestra. Concertos usually feature one or two soloists, but when four are featured, a different set of challenges arise. There is a history to this genre, however: Arnold Schoenberg wrote a concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra 1933, Louis Spohr wrote one in 1845 (Op. 131 No. 1), Francesco Gemininani composed several in the 1730’s, as did a few others others. All present different solutions to the issues of such a piece’s balance, leadership roles, and instrumenteation but for whatever reason, the genre never really caught on to the standard repertoire.
With Sunday’s concert, SJSO marks the first in an annual series of concerts featuring an established string quartet and the orchestra. The projects starts with the Ives Quartet (Next season’s collaboration is with the Cypress Quartet, and a new work by Pablo Furman) who will perform an all-time favorite, Dvo?ák’s “American” quartet along with Ms. Na’s premiere. Turner calls the new work “breathtaking” and explains that it is about how “textural tapestry evokeing the interplay of object and shadow.”

In addition, the orchestra will perform two additional modern pieces: Lyric for Strings by George Walker (first African American composer to win Pulitzer Prize) and Rounds by David Diamond.

Turner admits “New works take more personal practice, more rehearsal time, more money, and it can be hard to promote the unknown.” These ads are common excuses for avoiding modern challenges, and it is great to see them tackled head-on. “Plus,” Turner adds, “it interests me.” Not exactly what you would expect from an expert on the harpsichord.

Despite, or as a result of, taking the tougher approach, the orchestra has been successful– even in “this economy,” SJCO is expanding its season. Why drive all the way to San Francisco for new music, braving traffic, crazies, and fog? We have great opportunities to hear exciting, interesting new music right here in the South Bay!

Ives Quartet’s ‘With an American Voice’ is perfectly timed – Mercury News February 1, 2009

By Richard Scheinin

Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony veered, musically speaking, from Aretha Franklin to Yo-Yo Ma. Many American voices were heard — including the music of the president’s own oration.

What good timing, then, for the Ives Quartet’s new program, “With an American Voice.” It explores the “voices” of several American composers and premieres a song cycle based on texts by and about Abraham Lincoln, who was born 200 years ago on Feb. 12 — and whose words, ideals and political style inspire the 44th president.

Friday at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, the Ives, an exceptional group from the Bay Area, began with a composer whose voice mostly has been forgotten. Quincy Porter was a New Englander, born in 1897. He taught at Yale and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954.

The Ives (named for another New Englander, composer Charles Ives) has been trying to draw this faded star back into the firmament. It has unearthed some of Porter’s works from the Yale Library and is recording his nine string quartets for the Naxos label.

Friday’s program (which repeats Feb. 22 in San Francisco) focused on Porter’s early opuses. “In Monasterio” recalled Renaissance chant, simple, open and innocently reverent. A setting of a Ukrainian song, showing off the Ives’ lush sound, preceded a “Scherzo” in which Porter began arriving at his mature style, with sharp-elbowed rhythms and tart, stacked harmonies. One could hear the emergence of a voice.

Joseph Gregorio, born in 1979, is definitely an emerging voice.

His “The Fullness of Peace,” the Lincoln-inspired song cycle, touches on musical theater, matching rhythms of language to song in the smart manner of Stephen Sondheim or Adam Guettel. Gregorio’s texts are often amplified by just the right glimmering harmony in the strings, or a bit of vocal melisma, stretching a syllable, or a recurring melodic motif to underline, say, Lincoln’s pleas for unity.

Raised in Gettysburg, Pa., Gregorio has Lincoln-esque roots. The piece, in seven movements and lasting 40-plus minutes, sets one of Lincoln’s favorite fables from Aesop and several letters, one written to his wife when he was a congressman, another by a girl advising Lincoln to grow a beard. There are words penned by Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman and Julie Gregorio, the composer’s sister, who selected the texts.

Initially, the piece glows with charm and awe. But it needs editing. Vocal lines, ably sung by baritone Austin Kness, have a sameness as the piece grows too earnestly “American” in its goodness, its Copland-y reflection of Lincoln’s rural roots and humility. One can imagine Gregorio composing the piece during the Obama campaign, feeling the weight of the historical moment; ultimately, one feels the weight too much.

The program ended with Dvorak’s “American” Quartet (String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96), which the Czech composed in 1893 while summering in Iowa. In a way, this was the night’s most authentically “American” piece.

It exults in African-American spirituals and still exudes a pioneer spirit, as well as a dancing Bohemian energy. The Ives — violinists Bettina Mussumeli and Susan Freier, violist Jodi Levitz and cellist Stephen Harrison — played it with passionate, almost raucous, zeal.

Contact Richard Scheinin at rscheinin@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5069.

Ives Quartet's 'With an American Voice' is perfectly timed – Mercury News February 1, 2009

By Richard Scheinin

Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony veered, musically speaking, from Aretha Franklin to Yo-Yo Ma. Many American voices were heard — including the music of the president’s own oration.

What good timing, then, for the Ives Quartet’s new program, “With an American Voice.” It explores the “voices” of several American composers and premieres a song cycle based on texts by and about Abraham Lincoln, who was born 200 years ago on Feb. 12 — and whose words, ideals and political style inspire the 44th president.

Friday at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, the Ives, an exceptional group from the Bay Area, began with a composer whose voice mostly has been forgotten. Quincy Porter was a New Englander, born in 1897. He taught at Yale and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954.

The Ives (named for another New Englander, composer Charles Ives) has been trying to draw this faded star back into the firmament. It has unearthed some of Porter’s works from the Yale Library and is recording his nine string quartets for the Naxos label.

Friday’s program (which repeats Feb. 22 in San Francisco) focused on Porter’s early opuses. “In Monasterio” recalled Renaissance chant, simple, open and innocently reverent. A setting of a Ukrainian song, showing off the Ives’ lush sound, preceded a “Scherzo” in which Porter began arriving at his mature style, with sharp-elbowed rhythms and tart, stacked harmonies. One could hear the emergence of a voice.

Joseph Gregorio, born in 1979, is definitely an emerging voice.

His “The Fullness of Peace,” the Lincoln-inspired song cycle, touches on musical theater, matching rhythms of language to song in the smart manner of Stephen Sondheim or Adam Guettel. Gregorio’s texts are often amplified by just the right glimmering harmony in the strings, or a bit of vocal melisma, stretching a syllable, or a recurring melodic motif to underline, say, Lincoln’s pleas for unity.

Raised in Gettysburg, Pa., Gregorio has Lincoln-esque roots. The piece, in seven movements and lasting 40-plus minutes, sets one of Lincoln’s favorite fables from Aesop and several letters, one written to his wife when he was a congressman, another by a girl advising Lincoln to grow a beard. There are words penned by Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman and Julie Gregorio, the composer’s sister, who selected the texts.

Initially, the piece glows with charm and awe. But it needs editing. Vocal lines, ably sung by baritone Austin Kness, have a sameness as the piece grows too earnestly “American” in its goodness, its Copland-y reflection of Lincoln’s rural roots and humility. One can imagine Gregorio composing the piece during the Obama campaign, feeling the weight of the historical moment; ultimately, one feels the weight too much.

The program ended with Dvorak’s “American” Quartet (String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96), which the Czech composed in 1893 while summering in Iowa. In a way, this was the night’s most authentically “American” piece.

It exults in African-American spirituals and still exudes a pioneer spirit, as well as a dancing Bohemian energy. The Ives — violinists Bettina Mussumeli and Susan Freier, violist Jodi Levitz and cellist Stephen Harrison — played it with passionate, almost raucous, zeal.

Contact Richard Scheinin at rscheinin@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5069.

In Honor of Lincoln – San Francisco Classical Voice January 30, 2009

By Dan Leeson

The second of four programs designed to celebrate the 10th anniversary season of the Ives Quartet had, as its theme, “With an American Voice.” Terrific idea. Imaginative programming! The players, Bettina Mussumeli and Susan Freier, violins, Jodi Levitz, viola, and Stephen Harrison, cello, are a unified force that shows some brilliant playing. While the program, presented at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, with two more performances to come, had a number of delightful moments, there were problems with the evening’s major composition, the premiere of an Ives Quartet commission.

The opening work was a genuine rarity — a string quartet made from a collection of four short, apparently unrelated pieces composed by a youthful student, Quincy Porter, who later became a highly respected composer, violist, and teacher. He had studied at Yale with Horatio Parker, teacher of Charles Ives some 25 years earlier. Even as a young composer, Porter knew exactly how to write for strings. Eventually he would write some nine quartets (the exact number is uncertain) that are being revived today. Levitz, the quartet’s strong and energetic violist, only recently discovered the manuscripts of the program’s four works in an archive at Yale.

While these were student compositions, they nevertheless showed a remarkable grasp of Porter’s compositional skill, as well as an affinity for string works. The individual pieces were a “Prelude” (1923); “In Monasterio” (1927), which consisted of three minimovements, all in a medieval style; “Our Lady of Potchav” (1923), a Ukrainian folk song; and “Scherzo” (1923). The Ives Quartet has been recording Porter’s complete string quartets, including this concert’s featured quartet, which shows the genesis of his American style.

The evening’s second presentation, a premiere work by composer Joseph Gregorio, added the baritone voice of Austin Kness to the quartet in a composition titled The Fullness of Peace, a seven-section work honoring Abraham Lincoln. Four of the work’s seven sections presented the president’s words, while a fifth derived its text from the writings of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The sixth section, without singer, was a meditation on the Gettysburg Address and the horrors of war, while the seventh was a poem by the composer’s sister, Julie Gregorio, that summarized the theme of the first six sections.

A composition to honor Lincoln is a wonderful idea. There are few musical works in which we are reminded of his greatness, the most outstanding two accomplishments having been keeping the Union whole and the Emancipation Proclamation. Perhaps Aaron Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait is the best-known such effort, but there is room for more.

Text Less Than Clear

The text, printed in the program, offered an opportunity for considerable excitement, but in practice difficulties arose. To begin, the singer’s diction was not clear. Part of the time, his voice was covered by the strings, while elsewhere it appeared that he failed to articulate the text with clarity. When, from time to time, the strings were silent, the sung words were clearer. And it is not that the Ives Quartet played too loudly, but rather that there existed some kind of a negative acoustical interaction between the strings and baritone Kness’ strong and extremely professional voice. But whatever the cause of the problem, the text, so necessary for this composition’s success, was not delivered accurately. An audience should not be required to read the printed text in order to understand what’s being sung. Instead, it’s the singer’s task to make the text crystal clear.

The composition itself had some positive moments, but it revealed two significant weaknesses. The first was its length, as could be seen by the number of nodding heads and restless movements from the audience. This failure can be corrected with a disciplined shortening of the work, particularly the fifth and seventh sections.

The second problem lay in the entirely monochromatic nature of the composition, with only one orchestral character presented. Even the charming letter to Lincoln from an 11-year-old girl, Grace Bedell, suggesting that he should let his whiskers grow, not only was almost entirely without charm and innocence, but also was presented in the same somber orchestral color as the other six sections. Gregorio must learn the lesson of varying the emotional character of a composition’s sections.

Gregorio is a skillful composer, as was shown in the seven sections of the compositions, but he appears not ready or willing to shorten what he writes and present the ideas in a variety of orchestral colors and emotions.

This composition is well worth salvaging. It has the essence of a strong work within it, but it needs Gregorio to shape the piece mercilessly to allow that essence to come forth.

The final work of the evening was the “American” String Quartet in F Major, Op. 96, of Antonin Dvořák. Arriving in the U.S. to become the president of the new National Conservatory of Music, Dvořák tried to create a sense of national style through the assimilation of plantation songs, Indian music, and spirituals. The thematic material of this work is not convincingly American. Dvořák displayed brilliance in handling Czech and Hungarian folk songs, though his invented pseudo-American tunes have an awkward character.

The Quartet played the work beautifully; it’s a fine group. Yet the composition falls between the styles of European classical music and the quasi-Indian and spiritual melodies that Dvořák did his best to invent, or borrow, in order to achieve an American feeling.

A tribute to Abe Lincoln – Palo Alto Online January 30, 2009

Palo Alto’s Ives Quartet premieres
‘The Fullness of Peace’

By Rebecca Wallace

When Abraham Lincoln was young, he memorized “The Lion and the Four Bulls,” a favorite fable by Aesop. It’s the story of a lion prowling a field, trying to attack a quartet of oxen.

As long as the oxen kept their tails together and “met the lion with a ring of horns,” they were safe. But when the lion got the oxen to quarrel and separate, the big cat picked them off one by one.

The moral, in Aesop’s words: “In Union there is strength / A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.”

Composer Joseph Gregorio had a shiver of recognition when he first heard the story. “This fable that Lincoln learned as a child would influence his thought for his entire career,” he said.

The Redwood City composer decided the fable would make the ideal first movement for “The Fullness of Peace,” his new song cycle for baritone and string quartet. The work, being premiered by Palo Alto’s Ives Quartet this winter, is based on the fable and on other writings penned by, about and to Lincoln.

The project has been in part a family endeavor. Gregorio’s sister Julie found and polished the texts, compiling, adapting and writing. They also include: an excerpt from Lincoln’s second inaugural address; a text based on writings by abolitionist Frederick Douglass about emancipation; and a poem by Julie Gregorio about a dream Lincoln reported having before each Union victory in the Civil War, of being taken on a ship to a mysterious land.

The song cycle is being performed in honor of what would have been Lincoln’s 200th birthday, but it’s also timely for another reason.

“I settled on the title, ‘The Fullness of Peace,’ because I realized that the whole work was more about the ideals that Lincoln championed — equality, liberty, peace — than about Lincoln the man. … And it’s been very meaningful for the quartet and the singers and me to bring this piece to life right around the inauguration of another state senator from Illinois,” Gregorio said. “I feel like his (Barack Obama’s) election to the presidency is in some ways the fullest flowering yet of Abraham Lincoln’s vision of equality for all.”

The Ives Quartet often commissions new works. Its violist, Jodi Levitz, had played another of Gregorio’s pieces and enjoyed it, and the quartet musicians also liked the young composer’s geographical connection to Lincoln: He grew up in Gettysburg, Penn.

Gregorio, 29, said he approached this composition as he would any other vocal piece: “I sit with the text for a while and think about what it’s trying to convey, its emotional tenor.”

The writings are often optimistic and sometimes even humorous. An early letter from an 11-year-old girl urges Lincoln to grow a beard because “All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands / To vote for you and then you would be President.”

Gregorio was surprised by another text, a letter from Lincoln to newspaper editor Horace Greeley. Lincoln wrote that he saw saving the Union as his main responsibility, whether that meant freeing the slaves or not:

“This is my office and my duty —
To hold the Union and the law above all else.
My own desire remains unchanged:
That all men, everywhere, could be free.”

“You don’t usually hear about that side of Lincoln,” Gregorio said. “His personal wish was to see all men, everywhere, free. But he viewed that as separate from his official duty. … We really got a more colorful picture of Lincoln from doing this project.”

Ives Quartet’s undeniable talent on display – The Buffalo News December 12, 2008

By Garaud MacTaggart
NEWS CONTRIBUTING REVIEWER

The Slee Beethoven Cycle is one of the great chamber music programs, mandating that every concert in the season contain one string quartet from each of the composer’s three “periods.”

Every year, each of the six concerts comprising the cycle is allotted a distinct trio of quartets for each of the programs.

Sometimes the series has featured the same ensemble running through a season’s worth of concerts and, at other times, two, three or four groups take turns tackling the programs. This year is one of those multiple group takes on the cycle with the Yings, the Lydian and, Friday night, the Ives String Quartet taking their turns.

Based upon their work Friday night, it is apparent that the Ives Quartet is an undeniably talented group of musicians.

One of the many peaks in Beethoven’s catalog belongs to the “Grosse Fuge,” op. 133, a massive, demanding piece that is almost symphonic in nature. It also happened to be the mandated centerpiece in the concert slated for the Ives String Quartet. The other works scheduled, the D major quartet from the composer’s op. 18 and the first of the three op. 59 “Rasumovsky” string quartets, also have their charms with the later named score being one of the most beguiling pieces in the cycle.

In the earliest work on the program, Beethoven opens up with a lovely, graceful tune that speeds up and gets more insistent and demanding within a fairly short period of time. It is a tricky thing to get right, to manage that transition between the seemingly lightweight to something

with more gravitas. Luckily the Ives String Quartet had the measure of the piece, literally from the get-go.

The “Grosse Fuge” was a little bit more challenging with dramatic pauses that sounded as if the composer was furiously constructing and deconstructing a monument, building a complex sonic sculpture more to be admired than loved.

The bracing-yet-approachable op. 59 quartet closed off the evening, and here the ensemble came through with considerable aplomb, matching the quality of insight that they brought to the earlier op. 18 quartet.

The Ives Have It – San Francico Classical Voice October 24, 2008

By Beeri Moalem

Any ensemble that calls itself the Ives Quartet had better not play like sissies, as Charles Ives himself would threaten. “I don’t write music for sissy ears,” he used to quip. When an audience member once booed a dissonant piece, he stood up and shouted back, “Stop being such a God-damned sissy! Why can’t you stand up before fine strong music like this and use your ears like a man?” Last Friday at St. Mark’s Church in Palo Alto, the ladies and gentleman of the Ives Quartet more than lived up to their name, playing Ives’ own Second Quartet with all the required force and grit, not minding the dissonances and extreme difficulties, and embracing the quirkiness that, a hundred years after its creation, still leaves listeners in awe.

The performance conveyed so much more than standard musical fare — rather, it felt like a full-scale theatrical production, or perhaps a long spiritual journey. In the work, Ives quotes popular melodies among his dense clashing lines, but once the tongue-in-cheek awkward humor passes, an ironic power cuts through with these incongruent insertions. The music has a built-in miniature “skit” in which the second violinist pretends to get lost as the music grows too difficult, and finds her way back only when the music switches to a regular meter — this can be silly, and fun.

On a higher level, though, when performed with utter conviction, the piece conveys its true meaning: It is Ives’ criticism of musicians who snub dissonant, rulebreaking music — a criticism that still rings oh-so-true in today’s classical music world, where Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms are played again and again … and again.

I love those composers’ masterpieces as much as anyone else does, but I would much rather go to a concert and be challenged with three new works that I have not heard some 20 times. In its Palo Alto recital the Ives Quartet (the ensemble) lived up to its name in yet another way: by advocating and playing new music. In the remainder of its 10th anniversary season (it runs through next May), it will feature premieres by local composers, and will focus on unknown American composers such as Quincy Porter.

Music Conveying Many Moods

On this particular evening the Quartet presented a concert featuring three American works from the early 20th century, all composed within about two decades, yet all showing drastically different styles: the still-modern-feeling dissonances and complexities of Charles Ives, the charming jazziness of George Gershwin, and the passionate late-Romantic melodiousness of Amy Beach. In its playing, which was both natural and enthusiastic, the quartet displayed mastery of each of these contrasting musical worlds.

Each member of the quartet has a drastically different playing style, but somehow they coalesce into a rich ensemble. Jodi Levitz plays with an incomparably smooth, open sound that is rarely heard from violas. Susan Freier’s playing challenges with a force seldom heard from the second violin chair. Cellist Stephen Harrison grounds the group with a thoughtful, careful approach. And first violinist Bettina Mussumeli plays with a colorful, passionate sound, and knows how to blend and how to soar, how to speak and how to sing. At the conclusion of the third movement of Ives’ quartet, Mussumeli’s stratospheric melody, played in the highest possible register, cut through despite being so delicate — a truly transcendental sound.

All these sonic personalities ensure that there will always be something interesting for the ear to focus on. Yet when asked to play unison lines, as was frequently the case in the Amy Beach Piano Quintet in F-sharp Minor, the ensemble sounded like a single powerful string instrument, in terms of intonation, color, and direction. A listener could hardly ask for more from a string quartet.

In the Beach quintet, pianist William Wellborn joined the ensemble and displayed masterful pianism, sustaining the composer’s long, lyrical lines and balancing considerations of chamber music style with dashing solo runs.

Gershwin’s gentle Lullaby, with its exposed harmonics and flowing melody, coming as it did right after Charles Ives’ antithetical quartet, is exactly what Ives would have referred to as “sissy music.” Yet this string quartet showed that it has the versatility to play as schmaltzy sissies, as well as virile machos.

Ives Quartet opens season with inventive, adventurous program – Mercury News Friday, October 17, 2008

By Richard Scheinin

Jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk used to joke that his group didn’t get enough gigs in New York, his home base, because club owners took him for granted. “Oh, you’re that local band,” they would tell him, time and again, he said, with a laugh that betrayed more than a little frustration.

You have to wonder if the Ives Quartet, a superb Bay Area-based chamber group, has something of the same problem as the late Kirk. Entering its 10th season, the Ives doesn’t have the high profile it deserves around the bay, even though its performances tend to be imaginative, passionate, refined — every bit as enjoyable and rewarding, in other words, as those by better-known string quartets.

If you’ve never seen them, do yourself a favor and attend one of their season-opening concerts, happening tonight in San Jose and Friday in Palo Alto. As usual, the group — violinists Bettina Mussumeli and Susan Freier, violist Jodi Levitz and cellist Stephen Harrison — has put together the sort of out-of-the-box program you’re unlikely to hear from most other quartets.

It’s an all-American program, featuring George Gershwin’s “Lullabye” (he later culled the tune “Has Anyone Seen My Joe?” from it); Charles Ives’s thorny and wondrous String Quartet No. 2; and Amy Beach’s Piano Quintet in F-sharp minor, a darkly Romantic work by the New Englander whose music was widely performed a century ago. Leave it to the Ives (joined by pianist William Wellborn for the quintet) to arrange her Bay Area comeback.

Back in 2006, here’s what I had to say about an Ives program of Mozart, Beethoven and Leo Ornstein, another now-overlooked composer who, in his time, was a superstar pianist likened to Rachmaninoff:

The Ives “performed with a super-refinement that kept breaking out into a visceral, almost rock ‘n’ roll intensity.”

Ornstein’s Quintet for Piano and Strings (performed with pianist Janice Weber) “was panoramic: You could practically see the Russian steppes moving past, as if through the windows of a train. The performance was also brutally emotional, alive with arching, cantorial melodies set in unison for strings over the galloping, arpeggiating piano. All was in constant motion, propelled by big gestures: long-noted themes, obsessively explored; Stravinsky-esque rhythms; dashes of New York’s Jazz Age hustle and bustle.”

Curious yet? Read more about the group at www.ivescollective.org.

And go see the Ives Quartet at 7 tonight at Le Petit Trianon, 72 N. Fifth St., San Jose; or 8 p.m. Friday at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 600 Colorado Ave., Palo Alto. Tickets: $25 general, $20 seniors, $15 students, free ages 12 and younger. Buy tickets at the door, or make a reservation at (650) 224-7849.

Contact Richard Scheinin at rscheinin@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5069.