Balourdet Quartet delivers a dynamic performance at Fort Worth’s Modern Art Museum for Chamber Music Society | EarRelevant

CONCERT REVIEW:

Barloudet Quartet
September 14, 2024
Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Fort Worth, TX – USA
Angela Bae & Justin DeFilippis, violins; Benjamin Zannoni, viola; Russell Houston, cello.
Joseph HAYDN: Quartet Op. 64 No. 5 “The Lark”
Béla BARTÓK: Quartet No. 5, Sz. 102
Bedřich SMETANA: Quartet No. 1 “From My Life”

Gregory Sullivan Isaacs | 18 SEP 2024

While the concerts of the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth usually fill the modest number of seats in the auditorium of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Saturday boasted an overflow crowd. While I was not late, I was surprised to discover that the seats were almost filled when I arrived. In fact, there were even concert-goers who had to be seated on the steps on the sides of the seating area. However, it was all worth the inconvenience because we were rewarded by a concert of exceptional quality.

First of all, the members of the Balourdet Quartet brim with youthful energy combined with equally obvious mature musical sensibilities. They are Korean-born violinist Angela Bae, New Jersey native violinist Justin DeFilippis, Houston-born violist Benjamin Zannoni, and Dallas-born cellist Russell Houston. Their educational biographies all mention a similar list of distinguished music schools. Houston’s Shepherd School of Music at Rice University appears on all four lists. Other schools mentioned are the New England Conservatory, Northwestern University, and the Juilliard School in New York City.

The challenging program offered three quartets. The first was Franz Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in D major, Op. 64 No. 5, Hob.III:63 (“The Lark”), followed by Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No.5, Sz.102, BB110, and the second half of the concert featured Bedřich Smetana’s biographical String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, “Z mého života” (“From my life”).

The wide stylistic variety evidenced in this program presented a challenge in itself. The performance of Haydn’s popular “Lark” quartet exhibited a matched minimal use of vibrato and a Haydnistic restraint on the loudest of the dynamic levels. The clarity of the voices was especially noticeable in the third movement, where the composer distributes the passagework equally between the voices.

One minor quibble was some minor intonation problems in Bae’s work in the first violin chair. Nothing was actually out of tune, but some pitches need minor micro-sized adjustments depending on their harmonic function.

Haydn’s elegant world was shattered by Bartók’s rude, rhythmic, and insistent repetition of a series of B-flats, played “forte” in the first position on the instrument’s lowest strings. The quartet played the passage with enough bow pressure and energy to get the intended “growl” out of the string without distortion. This combination of barbaric playing, barely held in obvious restraint and paired with moments of stillness, was the hallmark of this characteristically Bartókian performance.

Like all good readings of the composer’s series of string quartets, Bartók’s complex inner compositional workings were there, but not underlined. In this performance, the harmonic flow of the first movement, up and down the whole tone scale, only created tension and a feeling of arrival and retreat.

The short second movement (“Adagio molto”) started with random musical motives grounded by Houston’s mournful cello progression. A quasi-chorale followed, with Bae’s violin comments in an unrelated key, creating an otherworldly atmosphere. Their switch to the Scherzo was barely noticeable until we were in the thick of it. Cross rhythms, unusual Bulgarian folk music time signatures, and sudden dynamic and tempo changes kept us guessing.

The performance also subtly transitioned into the musical kaleidoscope of the last movement. The performers connected up all of Bartók’s disparate elements, which can sound random in less sympathetic hands, into an involving narrative.

For those who find Bartók’s music too dissonant and rough-hewn, the composer ends with a smile. He presents a vapid tune in a “real” key (A major), with a tempo marking of “indifferenza” and gives it to DeFilippis’ second violin chair. Add to that violist Zannoni’s playing of the classical era Alberti Bass pattern perfectly realized the composer’s instruction to play it “meccanico.”

Bedřich Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 in E minor is subtitled “Z mého života” (“From my life”), and he gave out its biographical program in a letter to his friend Josef Srb-Debrnov [see the CODA below]. All this explanatory detail about the heartbreak of his growing deafness and bittersweet memories dramatically adds to the listener’s involvement in the music. However, this is still a remarkable masterpiece without it.

Smetana’s inclusion at the end of the last movement of a loudly sustained super high pitch (E7) shares with the listener the constant sound in his ear, which was the growing indication of his encroaching deafness.

Violinists Bae and DeFilippis traded chairs for this performance, which actually changed the ensemble’s sound. Perhaps this was because DeFilippis’ darker resonance, replacing Bae’s more treble sound, better fit with Smetana’s more prominent use of the viola and romantic harmonic structure. Zannoni’s rich viola sound certainly rose to the occasion.

Played with sensitivity and a touch of the melancholy brought by the reminiscence of happier days, this performance was the highlight of the afternoon. ■

CODA

Smetana’s letter to Josef Srb-Debrnov:

I shall not be in the least offended if this style does not find favor or is considered contrary to what was hitherto regarded as quartet style. I did not intend to write a quartet according to recipe. … As a young beginner I worked sufficiently hard to acquire thorough knowledge and mastery of musical theory. With me the design of every composition depends upon its subject. And so this quartet, too, shaped its form itself. I had wanted to give a tone picture of my life. First movement — the call of fate — the main motif — into the struggle of life. The love of art in my youth; romantic mood, in music as well as in love and life in general; an inexpressible yearning for something that I could neither name nor imagine clearly, and also a warning…of my future misfortune. … It is that fateful ringing of the high-pitched notes in my ear which announced my coming deafness in 1874. I put this in as it was so fateful for me. Second movement — à la polka — takes me back to the happy times of my youth, among the country people as well as among the people of higher classes (Trio, meno mosso, in D-flat) where I strewed the whole world with dance pieces, and was myself well-known as an enthusiastic dancer. It also describes my love of traveling; in the viola and later the second violin I marked `à la tromba posthorn.’ Third movement: reminds me of the happiness of my first love to the girl who later on became my faithful wife. Fourth movement: knowledge of how to make use of the element of national music, joy at the success of this course up to the time it was interrupted by the catastrophe — ominous for me — of the beginning of deafness, a glance toward the sad future, then comes a brief sign of improvement, but, at the thought of the beginning of my career, nevertheless sadness. Roughly this is the aim of this composition, an almost private one, and therefore purposely written for four instruments which … talk to each other in an intimate circle of friends of what has so momentously affected me. No more.

EXTERNAL LINKS:

Balourdet Quartet: balourdetquartet.com
Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth: cmsfw.org
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth: themodern.org

About the author:

Gregory Sullivan Isaacs is a Dallas-based composer, conductor, and journalist. He is also a coach and teacher with a private studio.

Read more by Gregory Sullivan Isaacs.