The Brentano Quartet, a frequent visitor to Utah and one of today’s most in demand ensembles, will be returning to the Beehive State next week for concerts in Salt Lake City and Logan.
On the program for both concerts will be Mozart’s Quartet in B flat major, K. 458, Hunt, and Bartók’s Quartet No 3.
Brentano Quartet
“Mozart didn’t give the quartet its nickname, but with its opening theme that reminds you of a hunting horn it’s easy to see why it’s called the Hunt,” said the Brentano’s violist, Misha Amory, in a phone interview with Reichel Recommends.
The work is also one of the brightest and most optimistic among Mozart’s string quartets, Amory added. “It’s a sunny, joyous romp that just glows at you.” That’s something that distinguishes it from the other five quartets that make up the so called Haydn Quartets – the set of six quartets Mozart dedicated to the older composer. “In the other five Mozart shows off what he can do. There is a lot of complexity in them. But the Hunt is simple, innocent, naïve and transparent. It’s just a lovely work.”
It will be paired with Bartók’s Third Quartet in the first half. “It’s possibly my favorite of his six quartets,” Amory said. “It has all the Bartók ingredients. It crackles with electricity, and there is a strong folk element, especially in the faster sections. There is an abstract feeling of loneliness, too, the same feeling you find in his Concerto for Orchestra.” The work is in one movement and is the shortest of the six, making it very compact and concise. “That adds to its intensity,” Amory said.
The Third is also the first quartet in which Bartók is his own master. “He’s no longer experimenting and trying to find his own voice. It’s a wonderful piece.”
For its Salt Lake concert, the program will conclude with Elgar’s relatively unknown Quartet in E minor. Amory said it’s been in the Brentano’s repertoire for a few years, and the reaction has been pretty much the same wherever they’ve played it. “Venue after venue we’ve had presenters tell us, ‘This is the first time we’ve had it here.’”
Written at the end of Word War I, the quartet is from the same period as Elgar’s Cello Concerto. “[The quartet] is a very beautiful, romantic, evocative work,” Amory said. “It’s wistful and melancholy with a touch of sadness to it. It’s very much like Elgar’s other works from the period.”
Amory said that after this season they will retire the work from their repertoire. “We’ve played it a bunch, especially last season. We’re going to replace it with Elgar’s more popular Piano Quintet starting next season.”
In Logan, the foursome will switch out the Elgar for a better known work: Schubert’s Death and the Maiden Quartet, a work Amory called “apocalyptic.”
Even though the Brentano is one of today’s busiest quartets, it still finds the time to be involved in teaching and coaching young up and coming quartets. This fall the group joined the faculty at the Yale School of Music after 15 years in residence at Princeton University. For Amory, who was an undergraduate at Yale, the move was like a homecoming. “It’s cool,” he said. “I graduated from Yale 25 years ago. The place has changed, but there are some teachers I knew who are still there.”
Amory said the Brentano’s residency at Princeton was “wonderful,” but he’s looking forward to new challenges at a school he knows so well. “It’s fun to come back to the place.”
- CONCERT DETAILS
- What: Brentano Quartet
- Venue: Libby Gardner Concert Hall, University of Utah
- Time and Date: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 6
- Tickets: $30 general, $10 students with I.D.
- Phone: 801-467-2181
- Web: www.cmsofslc.org
- ALSO: Pre-concert lecture by U. music theorist Michael Chikinda, Room 270, David Gardner Hall, 6:45 p.m., free.
- CONCERT DETAILS
- What: Brentano Quartet
- Venue: Performance Hall, Utah State University
- Time and Date: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 7
- Tickets: $24 general, $10 students with I.D.
- Phone: 435-797-8022
- Web: www.arts.usu.edu
