Calder Quartet at Herbst Theatre, April 12, 2017

San Francisco Performances presents Calder Quartet
Herbst Theatre
401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102-4522 USA
7:30 PM, Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2017 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2017 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

• Adès: The Four Quarters
• Adès: Arcadiana
• other works TBD

[7:31 PM lights down, announcements, performers out]

Thomas Adès (b. 1971): The Four Quarters (2010)

1. [7:32 PM] Nightfalls
2. [7:39 PM] Serenade: Morning Dew
3. [7:42 PM] Days
4. [7:46 PM] The Twenty-Fifth Hour
   [work ends 7:50 PM; applause and bows, then offstage for a minute or two]

Thomas Adès' page for The Four Quarters

1. [7:53 PM] [Andrew Norman](http://andrewnormanmusic.com/) (1979): Sabina (2008)
   [work ends 8:01 PM; applause and bows, offstage for a minute, then back]

Composer's note for Andrew Norman's Sabina.

Thomas Adès (b. 1971): Arcadiana, Op. 12 (1994)

1. [8:03 PM] Venezia notturna »
2. [8:06 PM] Das klinget so herrlich, das klinget so schön »
3. [8:09 PM] Auf dem Wasser zu singen »
4. [8:13 PM] Et… (tango mortale) [loud and brash] »
5. [8:16 PM] L'Embarquement [serene] »
6. [8:19 PM] O Albion [very slow] »
7. [8:21 PM] Lethe
   [set ends 8:22 PM; applause and bows, then off for intermission]

Thomas Adès' page for Arcadiana

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827): String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Opus 59, No. 2 (1808)

[8:45 PM lights down, announcements, band out]

1. [8:45 PM] Allegro
2. [8:56 PM] Molto adagio
3. [9:09 PM] Allegretto
4. [9:16 PM] Presto
   [show ends 9:23 PM; bows and applause, no encore]

Calder Quartet

• Andrew Bulbrook: violin;
• Eric Byers: cello;
• Benjamin Jacobson: violin;
• Jonathan Moerschel: viola.

Tonight's program was a really interesting blend of new music (in the first half, delivered very precisely, and with great élan), and a bit of the moldy stand by: who could possibly complain about old Ludwig van? Are you surprised to hear that someone would be me? I certainly loves my Ludwig, and his string quartets were a big part of the background music to my college studying, but tonight's rendition seemed to be shaded just a little too far outside the lines for me to be happy about it. Overall, I'd say that the Calder's performance was a very danceable approach, with a quite liberal variation on tempos from bar to bar and measure to measure. To the extent that this injected novelty into the performance, I enjoyed it. In fact, it worked great until the final movement, when the quartet seemed to run out of steam and lose sync with one another a couple of times. Messing with the time signatures is all great fun until someone trips over a loose stave and pokes an eye out. And that's what keeps conductors in business!

Rebecca Wishnia posted a review of the show at SFCV. I disagree with her thought that the two sets blended nicely, but hey, no big deal.

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2017 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2017 event list! ☸ On to the next event!