Classical Files

By JOHN BELL YOUNG
© St. Petersburg Times,
published December 2, 2001

DAPONTE STRING QUARTET; BEETHOVEN STRING QUARTETS OPUS 18 (available at www.daponte.org) Given today's climate of anxiety, it is hardly surprising that some seek solace in the cool rationality of late 18th century music. The baroque concept of musical dialogue was cultivated and raised to new levels in the music of Mozart, Haydn and especially Beethoven.

Eventually the string quartet became the apotheosis of the new style. What, after all, could be more intelligible and dignified than a stratified, if abstract, dialogue given to four individuals at the helm of their respective instruments? No one knew this better, or conveyed it more persuasively, than Beethoven. His early quartets, particularly when played as elegantly as they are here by the DaPonte String Quartet, make a compelling case for the genre.

Witness, for example, how cleverly Beethoven varies, within such a short space of time, the principal motive of the Allegro con brio of the F major quartet, Op. 18 No. 1. The DaPonte takes pains to illuminate the contours of such material without compromising any of the rhythmic trajectory upon which it depends. Again, in the earnest strains that inaugurate the opening movement of the C minor quartet, Op. 18 No. 4, this exemplary ensemble's playing combines with its seasoned rapport in serving the work's bold lyricism.

The musicians also understand the real meaning of staccato, which is hardly an excuse to strangle the life out of a note, but simply an instruction to separate one from another while preserving most of its metrical value. What's more, they consistently draw our attention, discretely but distinctly, to the importance of a harmonic event, or to the entry of a new or challenging voice within the contrapuntal fabric.

To its credit, the DaPonte avoids any arid skittishness; its collective bow arm is secure and given to sonority that values breadth and resonance, in which every pitch is accorded its full value.

According to its Web site at www.daponte.org, where this recording can be purchased, the DaPonte will perform at Eckerd College on Jan. 4 as part of the Sun Music Festival, where it will also give a master class. To judge from this outstanding recording, that ought to be a most worthwhile event. A

-- JOHN BELL YOUNG, Times correspondent

JUDITH INGOLFSSON, VIOLIN; BLOCH, ROREM, BACH, WIENIAWSKI (CATALPA CLASSICS 30101). In a musical world inundated by standard works and concert cliches, the artist who explores lesser known, but often worthwhile, works is one not given to showing off, but to intellectual curiosity. That kind of adventurous attitude often pays handsome dividends, especially when the performer is as mature and astute as Judith Ingolfsson, an Icelandic fiddler who makes an impressive debut with this disc.

In Ernest Bloch's (1880-1959) searing Violin Sonata No. 2, also known as the Poeme Mystique, Ingolfsson's uncommonly bright, sinuous tone proves an advantage. In this work Bloch makes exceptional demands on the violinist, both technically and interpretively. Composed in 1924, the Poeme for nearly 20 minutes develops variation and thematic transformation as the capital of its musical universe. That requires not only stamina but also musical savvy and flexibility. Ingolfsson finds opportunity everywhere, eschewing routine for an imaginative turn of phrase here, or a slightly different articulation there.

Like a good actor, Ingolfsson views the Poeme Mystique as a story to be told, which she does with earnestness and gusto.

She is no less persuasive in Ned Rorem's arid and somewhat frenetic Autumn Music, commissioned by the quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, where Ms. Ingolfsson took the gold medal in 1998.

Her Bach, on the other hand, while expertly groomed and well informed, lacks the kind of idiosyncratic characterization that lends integrity to the dance that lies behind the notes. In this unaccompanied suite, she fails to exploit the cumulative organization of its rhythm, which is energized by the smallest motivic units.

Henryk Wieniawski's finger-busting Fantasie, composed in 1868, pays virtuosic tribute to Gounod's immensely popular opera, all the rage in Europe then. It is salon music and was intended to amuse and entertain as the player dazzled the audience and sent it into frenzies. Nowadays that is less likely to happen, but the work nevertheless remains an amusing reminiscence of past glories. Ms. Ingolfsson nails down every note with unfailing intonation. Much to her credit, she denies it the pallid skittishness that less talented players often see fit to indulge in, lightly dusting its harmonics and pizzicatti without strangling their breadth or resonance.

In spite of the genuine intensity and even elegance of her playing, to say nothing of the generosity of her bow arm, her musicmaking suffers from a cool detachment and overt calculation that diminishes her otherwise robust imagination.

One wishes that she would breathe more easily and take just a bit more time at those rarified moments where exquisite refinement coincides with passion. And that she would worry less about technical perfection, useful though it is, and more about the aesthetics which inform a work. These are the interpretive subtleties that take time to cultivate. Given her remarkable gifts, the young Ingolfsson will no doubt discover that for herself. B+

BARTOK, CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA; LONDON PHLHARMONIC/LEON BOTSTEIN (TELARC 80564) Few would argue that among the great composers of the 20th century Bela Bartok was something of a musical polymath. His music, at once fanciful, energetic and challenging, avails itself of no particular regime in the household of compositional procedures.

Rather, Bartok's genius coalesced precisely around that which his critics dismissed as anachronistic: traditions cultivated from the indigenous music of their respective cultures. Bartok went even further, roaming his native Hungary, Central Europe and even North Africa in pursuit of the origins and nature of folk song. Alongside his friend and colleague, Zoltan Kodaly, he dedicated several years of his life to gathering Hungarian folk music, eventually publishing his findings in 1906.

Nevertheless, in spite of its sometimes jarring dissonances, his work never veered far from the principal vocabulary of tonality.

Literally on his deathbed in 1942, he was approached by Serge Kousevitsky, then the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, to write a new work for that ensemble. Bartok's health improved. Perhaps it was the money, which he sorely needed, that lifted his spirits. But more likely it was the intensity of his effort, fueled by his imagination, that bought him a lease on life: He lived to hear the premiere of the Concerto for Orchestra in December 1944.

It's an audacious work. Now mysterious, now violent, it is a rich tapestry of compositional events. Likewise, in the haunting Four Orchestral Pieces, composed in 1912, there is an uneasy prescience that anticipates the internecine dramas of his later work. That is not to say that the earlier composition is any less mature; on the contrary, Bartok had long since settled upon and refined his aesthetic agenda.

When he is not busy pursuing a career as Sunday morning news program political pundit, philosophy professor, literary critic, concert series administrator or president of Bard College, Leon Botstein is a competent conductor, but not altogether a dilettante. His readings of Bartok are articulate and engaging, though they tend to hover on the loud side. The radical contrasts a great conductor would easily survey escape Botstein entirely. Instead, he is principally interested in getting the job done.

That said, he ends his program with the succinct but atmospheric Hungarian Peasant Songs, which Bartok originally wrote for piano. Also gratuitously tacked on, as a separate track, is the original ending for the Concerto for Orchestra -- all 57 seconds of it. B-

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