concert review: Stanford string quartet marathon

[calimac]

At the Friday noon concert of the Stanford chamber music seminar, the convener invited us all to attend the equally free Saturday evening concert, and enough of us did to overflow the much tinier hall that it was held in. It was a string quartet marathon - six quartets by as many ensembles, lasting 3 1/2 hours with just one brief intermission - and most of the audience craved that crunchy music enough to last the course, though by intermission enough had melted away that the hall was no longer overflowing. This showed the diabolical cleverness of the organizers, who as usual arranged the bill by presenting the groups roughly in order of increasing proficiency.

Not that they weren't all good. The opening ensemble showed some technical weakness in solo displays, but they were impressively together, and navigated Beethoven's Op. 95 with precise hairpin turns of emotional character.

Then we had, in order:
*A gentle, almost tragic Mendelssohn Op. 13
*Prokofiev's Second performed by the most Russian Russians you ever did hear: rough, dark, heavy music-making
*Four Goth women from Australia being immensely civilized in Haydn's Op. 77 No. 2
*Though not lacking in emphasis or percussiveness, an alternately quizzical and wetly impressionistic version of Bartok's Second
*The physically largest players gave us an ethereally light, almost luminescent Beethoven Razumovsky Second

Always nice to be well-filled with such fine string quartetery.

Comments

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

You are the most fortunate of men; bless you.

[catcrocker.livejournal.com]

Made it through 1.25 movements of Beethoven (Op. 59, second time around + a bit of Op. 130) before the 3-year-old really made his presence known and had to be deported.

I think the thing that always strikes me about these concerts is the camaraderie. There are rough spots but also moments where people forget their nerves and remember to listen and look and just play exquisitely. Just moments, but each of these two groups had them (the opening of 130 was lovely, I thought.)

Must try to find sitters for next summer so that we can actually participate.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

You're referring to the Sunday morning concert, I see. I arrived at the beginning of that, but had to leave early, a process accelerated when, several movements in (around the time of the first Op. 59), I found that I was now seated in the Fidgety Little Boy section. Really, their father should have just sent them outside to play, where they would have been both safe and much happier.

[catcrocker.livejournal.com]

I think it's useful to try kids in concerts from a young age, if only because you and they know what to expect. Of course, if it's clear that they are going to be a distraction, one should remove them forthwith.

[catcrocker.livejournal.com]

Just realized that my comment wasn't totally intelligible. Kids need concert training. And parents need to test their assumptions every once in a while. I'd say that the stakes for a more casual, free, afternoon quartet marathon concert are lower than they would be for, say, the Emerson or the symphony. It's too bad that the kids ruined your experience, though.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I agree that the stakes are lower, especially since there was no assigned seating, so since the hall was not full I could just move for the moment; and as the concert was free I was not wasting my money by leaving. So I'm nowhere near as annoyed as I would be (and have been) under other circumstances.

But I think that it is possible for parents to tell, through trial with recordings and such, and by their perceptions of their children's attention spans, whether they'd be interested in a concert before taking them there. These boys were fidgeting during the first movement. I doubt they were getting anything out of the music, and exposure under such circumstances can actually be harmful to future appreciation.