Alice Tully: Aeolus Quartet Performs Haydn, Theofanidis and Ravel

Juilliard's annual Lisa Arnhold Memorial concert was held yesterday evening at Alice Tully Hall.  For the occasion, the Aeolus Quartet - Nicholas Tavani (violin), Rachel Shapiro (violin), Gregory Luce (viola) and Alan Richardson (cello) - performed a program of chamber music by Haydn, Theofanidis and Ravel.

The first piece on the program was Haydn's Quartet in D, Op. 76, No. 5 (1797).  The distinguishing feature of this work is the second movement, marked Largo, which is so lengthy and in such an unusual key (F sharp major) that it does not seem to fit in with the rest of the work.  One wonders if Haydn had not composed it as a separate piece and then inserted it in a larger work when the opportunity arose.  As it is, the movement is extremely moving and clearly anticipates the Romantic era.

There followed Ariel Ascending (1995) by Christopher Theofanidis.  Although the composer has received commissions from Orpheus (for their New Brandenburg series) as well as the San Francisco Opera and the Houston Grand Opera and has won any number of awards, including a Grammy in 2007 (for his The Here and Now based on the poetry of Rumi), this was the first time I'd heard of him, let alone listened to any of his music.  According to the composer, Ariel Ascending was inspired by Sylvia Plath's poem Ariel.  In the program notes, Theofanidis is quoted as follows:

"I started Ariel Ascending after reading the poem 'Ariel' by Sylvia Plath, which conjured in me a feeling of both the beautiful and the nightmarish.  I was struck by the sense of motion Plath creates - one can almost feel the wind as the poem progresses."

Plath's inspiration can be heard most distinctly in the final movement in which the music fairly takes wing and soars over the audience.

After intermission, the program concluded with Ravel's Quartet in F (1903).  The work is famous first of all for its role in the so called "Ravel Affair" when the composer left the Conservatoire de Paris after the quartet had been rejected for both the school prize and the even more prestigious Prix de Rome.  Even Fauré, to whom Ravel had dedicated the piece, had harsh words for it and described it as: "stunted, badly balanced, in fact a failure."  A Carnegie Hall program note has a more sympathetic comment on the work:

"Ravel treasured the quartet for its classicism, its way of looking back at and drawing on the past. Of course that past could not be recovered, and in all of his works, there is a sense of loss. At times the feeling is wistful, at other times melancholic, even devastating."

This was the second time this season I'd heard the work performed.  In October, members of the NY Philharmonic played it as part of the matinee series' season of French chamber music.  I found it interesting to compare the two interpretations.  While it would be easy to give the advantage to the more experienced Philharmonic musicians, the version performed by the Aeolus Quartet had a freshness and vitality that riveted the attention of the audience and was quite compelling to hear.