There can be no accurate review of last Thursday’s Kronos Quartet show without a brief look at the classical music tradition that produced the foursome. Hence, the following four paragraphs.
Isolated in American culture by a disinterested general public and, at times, a caustic fan base, classical music is seen more often as the soundtrack off the wealthy, the pretentious and the distant, rather than a popular form of expression. Surrounded by an atmosphere of superiority and arrogance that is off-putting to a general audience with more time for short pop songs and easy to digest jazz than long-form composition, art music has suffered from an on-going image crisis.
So while the surrounding atmosphere has lost its relative influence in recent years – the fusion of everything from hip-hop and country to rock-n-roll and jazz has pre-empted most interest it what appears to be a static classical music culture – its insidious culture still lives on. Supposedly music for only certain individuals, art music lives on in a void of popular performance: it is the last musical form that seems to segregate against certain fans.
Evidence? Author and historian of American culture Lawrence W. Levine has surmised that the creation of the Boston Pops had more to do with segregating those who were capable of understanding classical music and those who couldn’t. He suggested in a 1986 lecture at Harvard that the Pops was created as alternative source of entertainment for commoners seeking art music; the real aficionados could still go the Boston Symphony Orchestra, unencumbered by fans that couldn’t possibly treat the music with the reverence it deserved.
Some of that culture still lives on, although at this point in American culture, the Pops is far better known than the Symphony. Regardless of the image surrounding the music, there is still the music itself. Centuries old in most cases, Beethoven and Bach and Tchaikovsky begin to sound the same after years of performance. The true purist would argue otherwise, but the true purists were the ones isolating the music in the first place. There was a stagnation of sorts in classical music, and as long as everybody continued to perform Mozart’s greatest hits, it seemed unlikely that the music would diversity enough to earn it new fans.
Thus re-enters Kronos Quartet. A San Francisco foursome, Kronos has done everything within its power to turn the notion of what art music is on its collective head. Toting a sound engineer to its performances, performing in clothing other than the traditional black dress of musicians and backlit by an actual light show, Kronos’ continued attempts to fuse traditional stringed play with modern notions of performance have been nothing short of revolutionary. However, even the new in a world of the old must be critiqued and to write that Kronos performed perfectly would be inappropriate.
It was clear to anybody at the performance space that when Kronos took the stage, it wouldn’t be papa’s classical music. David Harrington, the voice throughout the show and primary violin of the group, wore a leather coat and black jeans. Hank Dutt’s reddened viola matched his red leather pants. It seems strange to even give passing mention to performers clothing, but Kronos wants viewers to know that they are different, even before the musical performance begins. Thus it goes along that the show’s lighting became important. Lit in such a way as to put the performers on a relative pedestal surrounded by an aura of reds and greens and blues and, at the performance’s most intense moments, simple blacks and whites, everything about Kronos was different from the outset.
And then the music started.
Subliminal isn’t necessarily the word, but it is certainly close.
The first four performed pieces, from a diversity of composers and featuring a diversity of styles, let Kronos flex every musical muscle it has. Aleksandra Vrebalov’s “Pannonia Boundless” was brilliant. It featured cellist Jennifer Culp’s manic performance – it would be a running theme through the performance that she would drive Kronos – and a frantic approach by the rest of the group. The restrained subtlety of violinist John Sherba (at times the most non-member of the group) and violist Dutt, brought out the strong play of both Harrington and Culp. Silvestre Revueltas’ “Sensemaya” again featured Culp. The newest member of Kronos, it is almost as if she’s being given the keys to the car again and again so that she can prove she can drive. Again she performed with a twitching grace. Hildegard von Bingen’s “O Virtus Sapientie,” the most traditionally European performance of the evening, was simultaneously lonely and lush. Built on Harrington’s forlorn sound, and featuring progressively dimming lights than only increased the relative lonesome sound of the music, Kronos played with the audience visually, in a way encouraging it to understand the song better with the metaphorical through the loss of light.
Then, Clint Mansell’s “Requiem for a Dream.” With fed in technotica, Kronos played the main suite from Darren Aronofsky’s 2000 film about the depths of drug abuse. Projected onto the Concert Hall’s high concrete walls with low bright lights, Kronos’ bows danced on the instruments, spiraling deeper and deeper into the piece’s obvious depths. Knowledge about the movie helps – a family descends into a drug-induced madness – but it was obvious in listening, and in the image of the performance itself, that Kronos was exploring the emotional plumbs of its subject matter. The performance was a ten minute tour-de-force, which is why the show’s subsequent drop-off was so shocking.
After four pieces of sheer brilliance, Kronos came undone. After driving the audience to a certain point, Kronos simply got out of the car and sprinted in another direction. They slowed themselves down with Charles Mingus’ “Myself When I Am Real.” The arrangement was slow and meandering, and it was clearly a poorly placed attempt at slowing the show down. If Kronos is serious about blending popular performance with classical music, it has to understand that the best shows shift gears slowly, rather than dropping from fifth to first without the slightest hint that the change is coming.
Unfortunately, when Kronos comes undone, it really comes undone. Following “Myself” was “Potassium.” Arranged for the group by Michael Gordon, it was nothing but a repetitive cacophony that never came together musically. Sure, it was new to the traditions of art music, but new doesn’t always mean better, especially in this case. There was a brief intermission following “Potassium,” thank god, and then “Oasis” (by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh) and “Pari Intervallow” (by Arvo Part). Both were interesting pieces, a return to some of the more traditional sounds of art music that “Potassium” had so thumbed its nose at. However, the performances were still amiss. “Oasis” never properly gelled and “Pari Intervallow” was so short that it never really had the time to resonate with the crowd.
Just as quickly as Kronos had come undone, it came back together. Finishing with Steve Reich’s “Triple Quartet,” a fantastic piece that piped in a second quartet’s playing on top of the group’s stylings, Kronos seemingly picked up right where it had left off after “Requiem.” Kronos encored with Raoul Berman’s “Tonight is the Night.” Again, the performance was excellent.
There is a certain schizophrenia to the Kronos Quartet. The group’s desire to shake the basis of classical music is obvious. Its musicianship is superior and its willingness to try new things in the face of a conservative culture should be lauded. Further, when it all comes together, the foursome is without equal in the classical world.
But that experimentation can ultimately be its downfall; “Potassium” was a worthy effort, but Kronos has to know when to say no. Newness in classical music is necessary, but it isn’t always good.
