The Pacifica Quartet at Metropolitan Museum

New York の Metropolitan Museum は，エジプト文明の収蔵品でも有名ですが，そこのGrace Rainey Rogers Auditorium で The Pacifica Quartet が年6回の内の4回目の演奏会をベートーヴェン中心のプログラムで開催したそうです．休憩時間にはエジプト文明に触れられると言いますから，たいへんいい環境にあるといえるのでしょう．

もともと The Pacifica Quartet の最初の発想は，メンバーの出身地に近いので，1994年創設当時　The original idea was to start and live in L.A.,” だったので，Pacifica（太平洋のadj）　を冠にしたのですが，直ぐに　“Shortly after, we got a little residency in Chicago, at a school called the Music Institute,” で中部に本拠が移り，やがて　For the four young players, home is Champaign, Ill., where they are on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. とresidency を増やすことになります．
さらに，They also manage residencies at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass.　（ほとんどAtlantic大西洋のadj） にということですから，residency を3つ持っていたのです．

そこへ，今度は　the Pacifica Quartet will lay out yet another welcome mat, this one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it was recently named quartet in residence. That position was previously held by the venerable Guarneri String Quartet, which played at the museum for 43 seasons before retiring this month.
と43シーズンそこのresidence にあった有名な Guarneri String Quartet の後を継いで，もうひとつ residence を得たというのですから，アメリカ屈指の Quartet に登りつめたことになります．

そのＰａｃｉｆｉｃａ　Ｑｕａｒｔｅｔ が，新春に，年間6回の演奏会の4回目を　Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium で開催したコンサートの review が掲載されたので，ご紹介します．

まず，全体として，the Pacifica Quartet, now in the third year of its residency, seems to have settled in well. It sounded comfortable and lively on Saturday evening, its fourth of six concerts at the museum this season. と賞賛しています．

プログラムは，This season brings all 16 of Beethoven’s quartets, in programs balancing selections from the three major periods of his career. と通常はベートーヴェンの前期，中期，後期から選んで来たのですが，今回は，
two quartets in F: Op. 18, No. 1
　　　　　　　　　　 and Op. 59, No. 1
だったそうです．

the jump in style from Beethoven’s early to middle quartets was still obvious: the greater experimentation with combinations of instrumental textures, the increased structural expansiveness. と前期と中期の差異を明確にした演奏だったといいます．

その演奏は，The Pacifica’s interpretations are personal, with lots of rubato and dynamic variation, but the players — the violinists Simin Ganatra (an expressive presence) and Sibbi Bernhardsson, the violist Masumi Per Rostad and the elegant cellist Brandon Vamos — perform with remarkable unanimity of vibrato, attack and volume. とルバートの多用，ダイナミックな変化の強調など個性的で，しかし，4人の合奏のバランス，ビブラート，アタッカ，音量などの合奏のバランスは素晴らしかったといいます．

The quartet never sounds relaxed; even in lighter and quieter sections its mood is tensile. The long pauses in the Adagio of the Op. 18 quartet were charged, and the players seemed happiest and most natural ripping into more vigorous passages, navigating the transitions from courtly to savage dance in the second movement of the Op. 59 quartet with thrilling confidence. Some faster passagework got blurry around the edges, but it was all in the service of the spirit of the work.

the players seemed happiest and most natural ripping into more vigorous passages, navigating the transitions from courtly to savage dance in the second movement of the Op. 59 quartet with thrilling confidence. Some faster passagework got blurry around the edges, but it was all in the service of the spirit of the work.
と演奏については絶賛しています．

ただ，Pacifica への注文として，この3年間，Schostaｋovichの全曲演奏とか，いわゆるクラシックばかりを取り上げてきたことに対して，新作も取り上げて欲しいと要望しています．その点では，Museum の Manager がプログラミングの経験者に交替したことに期待を寄せています．

あとは，ご自由に，ご渉猟下さい．

 

 

Music Review

So Much Tension, Pulling at These Strings

Jennifer Taylor for The New York Times

The Pacifica Quartet, from left: Simin Ganatra, Sibbi Bernhardsson, Brandon Vamos and Masumi Per Rostad, performing Beethoven on Saturday evening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

By ZACHARY WOOLFE

Published: January 8, 2012

During intermissions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s lovably mid-20th-century-modern Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium it’s possible to wander through the adjacent galleries of Egyptian art. Attending a concert there, you are aware of history. It makes sense that the Met, with its vast holdings dating back millenniums, should emphasize stability and long relationships in its distinguished concert series.

The Beaux Arts Trio played at the Met for 35 years until its retirement in 2008. Itzhak Perlman’s association with the series — as a performer and mentor of young musicians — has continued for decades.

And for 43 years, before retiring in 2009, the Guarneri String Quartet was the Met’s quartet in residence. It was a daunting assignment to fill such longstanding shoes, but the Pacifica Quartet, now in the third year of its residency, seems to have settled in well. It sounded comfortable and lively on Saturday evening, its fourth of six concerts at the museum this season.

After playing a variety of standard works and one recent piece by Jennifer Higdon in 2009-10, the Pacifica turned to the full cycle of Shostakovich’s quartets in 2010-11. This season brings all 16 of Beethoven’s quartets, in programs balancing selections from the three major periods of his career.

Saturday’s concert — which featured two quartets in F: Op. 18, No. 1 and Op. 59, No. 1 — was the only concert of the six without one of the sublime late quartets. But the jump in style from Beethoven’s early to middle quartets was still obvious: the greater experimentation with combinations of instrumental textures, the increased structural expansiveness.

The Pacifica’s interpretations are personal, with lots of rubato and dynamic variation, but the players — the violinists Simin Ganatra (an expressive presence) and Sibbi Bernhardsson, the violist Masumi Per Rostad and the elegant cellist Brandon Vamos — perform with remarkable unanimity of vibrato, attack and volume.

The quartet never sounds relaxed; even in lighter and quieter sections its mood is tensile. The long pauses in the Adagio of the Op. 18 quartet were charged, and the players seemed happiest and most natural ripping into more vigorous passages, navigating the transitions from courtly to savage dance in the second movement of the Op. 59 quartet with thrilling confidence. Some faster passagework got blurry around the edges, but it was all in the service of the spirit of the work.

The thing that has been almost entirely missing from the Pacifica’s Met residency thus far is new work, which is a major part of its repertory elsewhere. Let’s hope the quartet will work with Limor Tomer, who took over the museum’s concert series last year and has considerable experience programming contemporary music, to change that.