Concord Chamber Music Society’s Co-Artistic Directors-in-Waiting Daniel Chong and Jessica Bodner (well known as members of the Parker String Quartet) welcomed their “world-class friends” the Jupiter String Quartet to the Concord Academy stage yesterday afternoon by paying tribute to the foursome’s “distinctive voice.” This writer, having relished the group’s concerts since its founding in 2001 at the New England Conservatory, has been pleased to publish 19 enthusiastic Jupiter reviews, and we agree with the New Yorker that, “The Jupiter String Quartet, an ensemble of eloquent intensity, has matured into one of the mainstays of the American chamber-music scene.”
The players began Beethoven’s String Quartet in F Minor, Op.95, Serioso (the last of his middle range) with fast, clean execution and dramatic savor as sweet, reposeful ppp gestures alternated abruptly with fierce, strident engagements in the Allegro con brio. Cellist Daniel McDonough dominated the Allegretto ma non troppo with cantabile soulfulness, while encouraging perfection of blend and unity of purpose from his partners. The fugato section unfolded with closed eyes and deep yearning, then the cello again took command of some harmonic travels. Brilliant first violinist Nelson Lee led the high-register finish with cosmic tenderness before the Allegro assai vivace ma serioso ensued attaca with urgency and fast-furious debate between the trio and scherzo sections. At times cosmically tender, the movement concluded with an irresistible accelerando. The Jupiters fired up with molten emotion in the Larghetto espressivo; Allegretto agitato; Allegro. Then they seriously rondoed with operatic propulsion through the abrupt transitions; they took the fairy coda at a rapid clip to leaven the seriousness with surprisingly bright smiles.
The Aspen Music Festival and School, Harvard Musical Association, and the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Jupiter String Quartet co-commissioned Kati Agócs’s Imprimatur, Quartet No. 2. This writer attended the 2018 performance at the Harvard Musical Association which BMInt’s Nicholas Sterner described HERE:
Premiered this past summer at the Aspen Music Festival, the seven continuous movements reminded this listener of Beethoven’s Quartet No. 14, Op. 131, even as the work combines elements of plainchant, Bartok-infused folk rhythms (harkening to Agócs’s own Hungarian roots), with technically expressive counterpoint. Opening with a Recitative, the first movement introduced the Dies Irae plainchant as a robust and fragmentary thesis. Followed directly by the freshly contrasting Ostinato movement, marked by pizzicati and syncopated mixed-meter, one sensed a pleading desperation for a justly pious moral order. Sequences of stark pain from the violins dissolved into the fragmented plainchant once again, in the third movement, Enraptured Troping; the dialogues of priests and preachers expounded platitudes, repetitions, creating growing dissonance. The fourth movement, Meditation – Crystal Chains, emerged as fugal entrances with an occasional high-register stretto. Continuing with confused pleading in dialogue between hysterical register shifts from the violins, contrasted by the Dies Irae from the viola and cello, the movement reached a climax. A brief, plaintive recitative followed from the first violin, which was then enveloped again by the quartet as a whole, before moving into the rhythmically driven flourish of the folk-inspired fifth movement, Wild Dance. This movement, with the rhythmic drive juxtaposed by technical violinistic fireworks, created a Totentanz which seemed to end as soon as it began, then shifting to the sixth movement, Quodlibet Coda (a philosophical/ religious discussion, in the old style). An antiqued style, with Eastern harmonic inflection, paired with fresh modernity, like the second movement, defined the mood of this movement. Broken once again by dissonance, the quartet flowed into the Coda. As a throbbing prayer, the movement scaled heighted rhythmic suspense to its conclusion of the piece, evoking the final climaxes of Bruckner symphonies.
Since that Boston debut, the Jupiter has deepened its conception of the work with tighter adherence to the shifting flashes of mood, mastery of morphing rhythms, clarifying the demanding tessituras, and surmounting every technical and interpretative challenge. With the Jupiter’s recording about to come out, we found the committed performance and the work to be simultaneously challenging, rhapsodic, frightening, swashbuckling, and yet, entirely agreeable in yesterday account. Second violinist Meg Freivogel’s spirit and strength were particularly apparent, and she was a strong driver in Imprimatur. A radiant and stylish Kati Agócs came on stage at the invitation of the performers, and they all embraced warmly, attesting their shared delight.
Cellist McDonough welcomed us to the second half by comparing “the black hole of abrupt transitions” in the Beethoven with the “well-developed universal humanity” of Schubert’s lyrically human, heavenly long, and profoundly dramatic String Quartet in G Major, D. 887. Potent with Lebenstürme, the Allegro molto moderato felt dramatically and warmly inhabited in the mature foursome’s awesome take. We witnessed top-tier evocations alert to life’s tumult, joys, sadness and repose, pictured with precision and freshness of impulse. Boy did those rapid, yet meaningful tremolos line up perfectly. McDonough and Lee traded the main theme searchingly, an accelerando ensued, then violist Liz Freivogel responded ppp through joyful tears. Another speedup with perfectly placed accents shone divine light before the sun set as McDonough glowing chariot descended.
Upward portamentos translated into urgent pathos with intimations of “Death and The Maiden” in the tragic Andante un poco moto. McDonough commanded in the cello-centric movement…precision tremulation led to fiery fffs, in well-tuned unisons and octaves…the opening theme returned as a lonely, but longed-for idyll.
Surely the Scherzo: Allegro vivace –Trio: Allegretto must have inspired the wing-fluttering scherzo’s of Mendelssohn. The Jupiters’ well-oiled sextuple quavers swept by like glittering fairy dust. The trio once more placed the cello in the spotlight, though this time duetting with the gleaming Nelson Lee, as the foursome waltzed with the noblest sentiment. Freivogel, displayed beautiful tone, maintaining eye contact with her peers and using her body language to facilitate the splendid togetherness of the ensemble, especially in this work.
Fiery and energetic exchanges waxed intense, yet elegant withal in the concluding Allegro assai. The big theme took on the divine Sarah’s love of language and coloration along with Duse’s histrionics.
I close by quoting Paul Katz’s overheard comment to his Cleveland Quartet partner Don Weilerstein concerning the Jupiter some years back: “They have the real quartet sound, and they played that [Beethoven op. 131] better than we ever did.”
The Jupiter String Quartet deserves an immediate return engagement. Considering the longtime connections between the ensembles, how about inviting the Jupiters to open next season with Parker String Quartet in Mendelssohn’s Octet? The Concord crowd hasn’t heard it yet.
