Monday, April 24, 2006

Death and the standing ovation - The Emerson String Quartet at Jordan Hall

Untitled10_1


Twilight on Gainsborough Street



Untitled15


Author Harlow Robinson (left) leads a post-performance discussion with The Emerson String Quartet

The Emerson String Quartet played an evening of the late quartets of the late Dmitri Shostakovich on Friday at Jordan Hall. It was dark territory, indeed. Mortality is contemplated unrelentingly in these late works (in the ears of this listener, anyway), but in the context of a compositional career spent toiling at the pleasure of the likes of Josef Stalin, the focus on death can feel like a kind of liberation, a universality. At last, something from the Shostakovich canon with which an American audience can truly empathize!



But cheery it ain't, of course. When I read the following passage in David Weininger's Boston Globe review I knew what he felt:



"So it was an altogether strange experience when the audience then erupted in
cheers. Applauding and shouting bravos -- these are intensely affirmative
actions, and it was jarring to hear them in the face of music so intent on
negating any glimpse of happiness. Maybe silence is the most appropriate
response to such unearthly art."



Sitting in Jordan Hall at that moment, I felt the same way, "Why am I clapping, of all things to do at this moment?" It seemed wrong somehow. It reminded me of a concert earlier this season, when Richard Goode had contemplated the heavens via Beethoven's Opus 111 Sonata, and one local critic jokingly suggested Goode return to the stage and play "Kitten on the Keys" as an encore. Nothing like clapping and encores should follow certain performances.



Maybe audiences, on receiving a performance of this kind of emotional seriousness, should shuffle past the stage, heads bowed, quietly touching hands with the performers like a losing Little League team: "Good game...good game...good game..."

Complete text of Burning brightly amidst Shostakovich's darkness.



1 comment:

  1. Received this on the Emerson performance from Gary Freeman, a freelance writer and frequent contributor to Goldberg Magazine and Episcopal Life:
    "Tackling a whole program of Shostakovich chamber music has to take guts--for the audience as well as the promoters, not to mention the players. Bank of America Celebrity Series sees great value in the Emerson Quartet’s dedication to 20th century music. I’m appalled that it’s a dedication that most modern radio stations shun in favor of nice ditties of Vivaldi or the big orchestral monsters of Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven. Chamber music, especially modern chamber music, is rare in performance, which makes us chamber music junkies all the more grateful for the Emerson Quartet’s preference. What’s with modern audiences, anyway, I have to ask myself? Like many commodites, chamber music should be treated as something precious and valuable. And Shostakovich isn’t hard to listen to: his neo-classicism often with the perfect balance of early Renaissance counterpoint makes a full concert of Shostakovich enjoyable, and his themes of social hardship and brutality turn the concert into a meaningful and beautiful meditation on creativity and honor. It certainly was the clarity of the musical sections, the emotional tugging of the artists, and the gracious pacing of the melodies that made us wishing for multiple encores."

    ReplyDelete