PERDITION AND REDEMPTION IN CHAMBER MUSIC 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Feb. 13-20, 2010
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 66
            SAN JOSE---One of Europe’s exciting composing talents these days is the dashing Scot James MacMillan, 50, who touches on sacred references even in his instrumental music.
            The Takács Quartet from Colorado performed MacMillan’s latest opus for the genre, the 25-minute String Quartet No. 3 (2008) in a dazzling display of conflict, passion, unorthodoxy, and resolution. This work of strongly theatrical character was one of the Bay Area’s exciting new pieces of the current season.
            It is built around a lead-off theme that MacMillan had heard women sing on the West Coast of Scotland---a falling lyric melody in a minor key suggesting Jewish traditions, of the sort  at times taken up by Dmitri Shostakovich. But, just like the seas off Scotland, calm in the case of MacMillan is usually short-lived. There is growing instability and chromaticism, ghostly harmonics, and increasing backtalk from the other players. Intense passion ensues, what first violinist Edward Dusinberre terms “scarcely organized chaos,” with an aleatoric segment in the highest registers.
            The middle movement goes farther, with knocks, ghostly rattles, and cello played below the bridge, all in unearthly fashion. The violist (Geraldine Walther) added a violent bouncing-bow solo.
            By this time I had concluded, here was no nice string ensemble coming for tea and crumpets. Appearances be damned; these were more like a menacing gang of thugs on the wharves, pocketing brass knuckles.
            Like a good play entering the third act, the final movement provides much-needed resolution, with a lovely melody spun out on the lead violin, and all the instruments trying outdo each other’s legato in the highest realms. The work fades out in total peace, ever softer, until the four are miming bowing, without a sound.
            One possible scenario: The composer descending into the Inferno through the first two acts, then to redemption in celestial heights for the finale.
            The concert Feb. 13 at Le Petit Trianon opened with Schumann’s String Quartet Op. 41 No., 2, a work as rich in sound as a string sextet, showing the path toward the grand Brahms chamber music yet to come.
            And it ended with one of the most endearing of Beethoven quartets, the “Rasoumovsky” E Minor (Op. 59 No. 2), where the unsettled moods of the restless opening give way to the stunning beauties and tranquilities of the Largo, a euphoric  inspiration that could easily double as a lullaby. Sorry, with this opus I can be neither entirely objective nor critical; I love it too much.
            The famous quoted Russian folk theme (“Slava”) pops up in the bumpier Allegretto, followed then by a truly joyous finale at presto speeds.
            The Takács Quartet realized this program exquisitely, with far more spirit and aesthetic sensibility  than other quartets we had heard lately. It is a study of contrasts that works to perfection---only two of the original four Hungarians are still in the group (leader Takács himself is long since gone), with the Englishman Dusinberre now leading, and the ex-San Franciscan Walther at viola.
            In sum, these are no thugs at play; they are artists in communion.
            For the San Jose audience, the concert was a particular treat, foreshadowing the Takács’ repeat coming up in that East Coast venue called Carnegie Hall you might have heard about before.
            After the concert in a Q-&-A, the players divulged a long-held secret: They have to play slower in large 1,500-seat halls (five times the Trianon capacity) in order to avoid jumbled sound effects.
            Now we know. Moral: If in a rush, you the listener should opt for smaller halls every time!
            Takács Quartet, Feb. 13, Le Petit Trianon, San Jose. Touring attractions presented by the San Jose Chamber Music Society. For info: (408) 286-5111, or go online.
        ©Paul Hertelendy 2010

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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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