Composer R. Murray Schafer
The St. Lawrence String Quartet's concert Saturday evening at Jordan Hall marked several occasions. It was:
1. ...most likely, the last chance to hear Barry Shiffman perform in Boston with the St. Lawrence (see Shiffman to Leave St. Lawrence from this blog).
2. ...the occasion of a collaboration between the St. Lawrence and pianist and chamber music elder statesman Menahem Pressler, who as Richard Dyer points out in his review, is in the 60th year of his musical career (!). And who certainly plays with the rich musical experience and none of the infirmity that might imply.
3. ...half of an inadvertant Celebrity Series "Canada Night," as The Chieftains simultaneously performed around the corner at Symphony Hall with a peck of Canadian nationals (see Chieftains
post on this blog). At Jordan, the St. Lawrence (Canadians) played, among other things a work by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer (more on the work below). No doubt there will be more similar evenings, intentional or otherwise...Canadians are everywhere among the talented, it seems.
4. ...a rare performance of R. Murray Schafer's String Quartet No. 3. Classical music critic, Richard Dyer reviewed the performance for The Boston Globe/boston.com:
"The second movement is wild: a parody of out-on-the-edge extreme
modernism as well as a superb example of the thing itself. The players
appear to generate and propel the instrumental music by strong
rhythmical shouting, primal screaming, and grunting; some of it sounds
like the soundtrack to a martial arts movie. The St. Lawrence's
performance was so uninhibited that it was both enthralling and
terrifying."
Read Richard's complete review, "Theatrical String Quartet Enthralls."
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