jwilzewske: Chiara String Quartet & Jefferson Friedman: Creative Symbiosis

The Chiara String Quartet gave a nice reprise tonight of their March appearance at TheBrick in Kansas City. As before, the house was packed during both sets.

Let’s set the record ‘straight’: club venues can be excellent for chamber music performances. An expert sound engineer and excellent gear can make the club nearly the acoustic equal of a recording studio or a fine small concert hall. And the audience who shows up is often more engaged and appreciative than most conventional classical music presenters are accustomed to. No rustling paper programs, no premeditated conditioning to a familiar, comodified repertoire. Just attentive immersion in the music. (Note to presenters: to keep your chamber music audience from coughing, just serve them cocktails.)

The Chiaras’ set-list included movements from Brahms’ Quartet in A Minor Op. 51 No. 2; selections from their CD of Gabriela Lena Frank compositions, ‘Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout’; plus movements from Beethoven’s Quartet in E-flat Major Op. 127 and Jefferson Friedman’s String Quartet No. 2. (The Chiara Quartet’s previous appearance here had included parts of Friedman’s Quartet No. 3.)

The Chiaras’ interpretive skills and aesthetic intuition find perfect application in rendering the music of composer Jefferson Friedman. Friedman’s Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 have been acclaimed by various critics, but some reviewers have also opined about certain shortcomings and problematic sections. Some commenters, such as David Salvage of Sequenza21, have impugned some aspects of the Quartets’ craftsmanship while simultaneously praising other aspects.

Be that as it may, the expressive language in the No. 2 and No. 3 Quartets is reasonably forgiving, and the Chiaras are empathetic and insightful executants. This situation is, I think, not too different from an author having a skillful translator to render the original work into another language.

Without a doubt, the concept of expressive fidelity and authenticity operates on many levels—in musical texts as well as literary ones. One level is vocabulary—mapped as precisely as possible, even in cases where this requires using unfamiliar expressions or inventing new words in the target language: ‘neologisms’ that somehow convey the intent of the original text. In music, this can entail unusual articulation to get unfamiliar timbres; unusual orchestration; unusual voice-leading.

Ultimately, the most important question regarding translatorly fidelity is ‘meaning’. If the words (notes) and syntax and rhythm and style are carried through to the target language (musical performance), the meaning will follow. Even if the original is ambiguous, or even if it has multiple meanings, a skillful translation will replicate that ambiguity/multiplicity of meanings.

There are times, though, when circumstances force the translator—here, the Chiaras—into a particular interpretation. In that case, it’s important to take full advantage of every available clue, including syntactic details, motif usage, and the relationship to preceding and succeeding sections—i.e., the flow. What shouldn’t factor into the interpretation is the translator’s preconceived notions of what the author/composer “must have been talking about.” [Considering David Salvage’s criticisms of Friedman’s work, it seems that Salvage was taking issue with what Friedman was “saying”, not with the Chiaras’ interpretation of Friedman.]

Language is central to any discussion about translation. But there are elements involved in the process of translation that go beyond this conventional area. Literary translation involves a good deal of interpretation about intent and effect. Likewise in music performance practice. On the other hand, a good literary translator is often not as much interested in explicit transliteration as in finding an accurate mood, tone, voice, sound, response, and so forth. Music, the same. Once upon a time, Petrarch said the goal is similarity but not sameness:

A n imitator must see to it that what he writes is similar, but not the very same; and the similarity, moreover, should not be like that of a painting or statue to the person represented, but rather like that of a son to a father, where there is often a great difference in the features and body shape, yet after all there is a shadowy something—akin to what the painters call one’s ‘air’—hovering about the face, and especially the eyes, out of which there grows a likeness ... We writers, too, must see to it that along with the similarity there is a large measure of dissimilarity; and furthermore such likeness as there is must be elusive—something that it is impossible to seize except by a sort of hunt, a quality to be felt rather than defined.”
— Petrarch, Familiar Letters, The Young Humanist of Ravenna, to Boccaccio, 287-293.

So, contrary to some critics’ contention that poetry ‘loses’ in translation or that poetry is deeply ‘untranslatable’, there are others who hold that it must be illustrated and illuminated—who hold that the essence that matters most does transcend culture- and linguistic- and generational localizations. To them, poetry is always ‘found again’ and re-created by the translator—even in successive generations of people in the language and culture in which the work originated. Everything is hermeneutics! Of course, the original poetics can’t be ‘transcribed’!—they must be ‘arranged’! The new ‘arrangements’ may be even more fully realize the composer’s aspirations than the original score with its instructions and annotations.

In other words, the translator is not merely a special sort of ‘reader’. She/he is that, yes—but she/he is also vicariously a writer and performer. The translator needs to project herself/himself into these roles and consider translation from the perspective of the culture and linguistic heritage of the readers and audience. In this sense, the Chiaras are especially deeply “invested” in their roles as active musical translators/arrangers/readers/writers, not “only” performers. (Their investment style? High-risk musical growth equities! High-volatility, large alpha stocks, like Friedman!)

Good translators discover the dynamics of the work, and don’t allow its literal mechanics to trump every other card. This is what the Chiaras do so well. They take what Friedman wrote and add value to it. They make it their own. But they are also like specialists on the trading floor of a stock exchange—they “make a market” in Friedman.

A bout two-thirds of the way through, something special happens: the instruments climb into their highest registers, start playing quick glissandos and unisons of varying vibrato widths, and, for a few breathless moments, break into birdsong. When the music returns to Earth again, the resolution is beautiful, and one realizes one has just heard something a little amazing.”
— David Salvage, Sequenza21, 27-APR-2005, on String Quartet No. 3.

Friedman’s writing is full of non-standard things. ‘Non-standard’ language may be used by an author/composer for other reasons than simply to make character speak in a more realistic way. Non-standard language is incorrect not only from a grammatical point of view, but also from an ethical stance. This sets non-standard language in stark contrast with standard language, which can be seen as representing the Establishment. Great move for a Young Turk composer like Friedman!

‘Non-standard’ language can be a sort of symbolic protest against the prevailing culture and society. For example, it can describe an underprivileged/overprivileged social context from the inside, through the language it uses. Non-standard language may in fact constitute ‘profanity’ against standard forms/norms even if it isn’t inherently profane. As a result, the use of non-standard language may help to make a musical, novelistic, or cinematic work more accessible to a target audience, in a provocative way. [And this Friedman Quartet No. 2 is positively cinematic, by the way.] Translating non-standard expressive language is therefore a hard task—harder than translating ordinary texts. Even when a skilled translator has understood the author’s original motives, the cultural background, the social level(s) referenced, and the intended effect, the problem remains of how to emulate the peculiar flavor and intent in another language.

There’s no easy solution. In theory the reader/hearer of the translated version should be able to intuit the same information the reader/hearer of the native text acquired. But this is tough. Shades of meaning do get lost in translation. So a really good translation is, and must be, a balance between what gets ‘lost’ and what can be ‘found’. The translation of non-standard language, even if it’s a difficult task, can be extremely fascinating and rewarding. Here’s where the Chiaras excel. They muster a hefty dose of creativity, and find ways of making sure that as little as possible is lost and as much as possible is found in their ‘translation’ or ‘arrangement’. Friedman wins; the Chiaras win; we win!

The No. 3 Quartet’s brief movements (first and third) enclose a longer central movement entitled ‘Act’. Both the first and third movements open with long, insistent, crescendo phrases. But while the first movement is “in your face” with aggressive ostinatos, the third movement is quiet, eventually settling on a major triad.

T he content of the middle movement is more varied. Ranging from close Ligeti-like chromatic counterpoint to spacious Copland-esque chorales, ‘Act’ doesn’t quite reconcile its contrasting materials satisfactorily. Particularly disappointing is the easy major resolution that concludes the movement.”
— David Salvage, [Sequenza21, 27-APR-2005]

T his No. 3 Quartet is uneven. The first movement never quite emerges. There are passages of ostinato that feel like un-melodied accompaniments. There are too many broad crescendos that terminate in sudden pianos.”
— David Salvage, [Sequenza21, 27-APR-2005]

T his young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in five or 10 years it is going to be spectacular. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development.”
— Itzhak Perlman.

Is Friedman’s C major resolution in this movement of the No. 3 quartet a ‘mistake’? Why does Salvage think it is ‘too easy’? Does Friedman regret the decision to resolve in this way? Should we accept Salvage’s assessment and feel embarrassment at preferring the C major choice that has been deprecated? Is Salvage a ‘pump-and-dump’ day-trader in Friedman? I, for one, do not think it is ‘easy’ or a ‘mistake’ any more than I think the major-key resolutions in much baroque music were ‘easy’ or ‘mistakes’. Think of Bach’s Concerto in D minor (BWV 974) –the nuances of Glenn Gould’s rendering of it, for example. There’s a poignancy in the major-key resolution that coheres with every minor-key thing that has gone before. There’s a restraint, there’s a backing-off of key attack velocity—many cues in the composition that add depth and complexity to an ‘easy’ major triad.

The Chiaras’ performance of parts of the No. 2 quartet at The Brick tonight was also illuminating—thoughtful without being self-conscious, erudite-but-never-scholastic. Mr. Friedman composed his String Quartet No. 2 for the Chiara String Quartet in 1999 while under the guidance of John Corigliano at Juilliard. The first movement opens with strident rhythms that deliberately shift in and out of sync. The lyrical second movement is a déjà vu view of someone’s secret reveries—either Friedman’s, or your own. In the dance-like third movement, rippling trills lead to a passage of muted longing and a revivified finale.

Quartet No. 2 does not have the first violin or any other part predominating unduly. No part merely ‘fills in’. The string writing deals far less in outlines than in harmonic blocks. The effect is exhilarating and gripping.

Friedman’s writing is contrapuntal and closely-packed—there’s far more texture in it than many ‘new music’ compositions. The excellent sound engineering at TheBrick did justice to the Chiaras’ rendering of this.

Born in 1974, Jefferson Friedman is American, the winner of the 2004 Rome Prize Fellowship in Musical Composition from the American Academy in Rome. His commissions include two orchestral pieces for Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra, works for the Yesaroun’ Duo, two string quartets for the Chiaras, and a chamber piece for the Utah Arts Festival. His music has been performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and the American Academy in Rome. Mr. Friedman received his M.M. degree in music composition from The Juilliard School where he studied with John Corigliano. He lives and composes in Long Island City, NY.

W e know it’s great music. We also know that people who have never heard it before have very strong, visceral feelings and connections with the music. But barriers (have to be) broken down for them. I think a lot of our generation is working to take down those barriers that say classical music is elitist, or only for old people or only for rich people. We play all over the place - in schools, in nursing homes, in urban settings, in rural settings. We’ve really played for any audience that you can imagine. That really has to be an m.o. for any group starting out now.”
— Jonah Sirota, Chiara String Quartet, 2006.

S uits and tuxedos are designed explicitly to prevent blood from reaching the brain and to prevent audience members from feeling comfortable. We’ve done our best within the conventions of the concert hall to relax this feeling, but in the concert hall there is no easy way to duplicate the freedom of just being yourself you have when playing in a club.”
— Greg Beaver, Chiara String Quartet, 2007.

jwilzewske

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Chiara String Quartet & Jefferson Friedman: Creative Symbiosis

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