Tonya and I went to see Kronos Quartet last night. What an amazing performance! During the first or second piece I was thinking, “Why is everyone else still playing Beethoven and Schubert when they could be performing this kind of music?” I later said that to Tonya and she said she was thinking the same thing. Except for two arrangements, (one of a Jewish liturgical poem set to music, the other a traditional Scandinavian folk song) everything was written by currently living composers. Probably what impressed me the most was how Kronos was completely engrossed in their music. It seemed to me to be so much a part of their souls, so internalized and focused in a way that I don’t think I’ve seen very often in musical performances. If anyone can “sell” a piece of music, they certainly can.
Most of the pieces they played had an audio (taped) accompaniment which was flawlessly delivered as the quartet played their instruments. I didn’t realize that they used so much additional audio in the pieces they perform. I guess it could be happenstance that they programmed this many pieces for this year’s tour with that aspect, but I highly doubt that. I remember when I saw them in Nashville many years ago that they performed a piece that had excerpts of Elvis impersonators as part of the additional audio content. That piece is actually the only thing I remember from that concert!
Another great thing about the concert was the lighting. In addition to their audio engineer, Kronos has a lighting designer. This is something I’ve wanted to be a part of my performances for a long time. I wasn’t thinking of doing anything for my recital this year, but after seeing this performance have definitely changed my mind. Although I guess it won’t take too much time, I didn’t want to put the extra effort into it this year because it is somewhat cumbersome organizing these kinds of details. My thoughts now are, “how can I not have special lighting for my recital?” First of all, the group is only four people, so here are four guys that take up very little space on the huge stage they were on. Normally when I see small groups on stages like that, there is some special screen or baffle behind the group (which I’ve always thought looks terrible), and the whole stage is flooded with light. What does Kronos do? They have four spotlights coming from above them which appear to be focused on their music stands. This way the group is framed within a focused area, so focused, that their backs are part of the darkness. All you see is the front of them and their instruments. You know the rest of the stage is there, but now it doesn’t matter. This was only part of the lighting design. At the back of the stage was a curtain and throughout the whole concert the lights shining on the curtain either changed colors or had different patterns shining on the curtains. This was also very effective and only enhanced the music.
Finally, another device employed by the group was using pick-ups on their instruments so their sound was amplified. Lots of times when things are amplified they get way too loud but that didn’t happen at all last night. Again, this was handled expertly by Kronos and the technicians. They didn’t use amplification on every piece, and I don’t know exactly which ones did use it, except that one of the pieces had different effects like reverb which was pretty cool. I’m playing a piece in my recital for drum set, violin and double bass, so now I’m really thinking of seeing if the violin and bass can have pick-ups to balance out what I’m doing.
If Kronos Quartet ever comes close to where you live, you really should go see them! We’re not the only ones who enjoyed the concert—the crowd kept clapping so the quartet ended up coming back on stage twice and played an encore each time. A year ago in December, Tonya and I went up to New York to see a double bass sextet, L’Orchestre de Contrabasses, and like Kronos, their show was simply amazing. We both left that show feeling like we had just seen a group like a major rock band and why weren’t they popular like that! (While the video I linked to doesn’t exactly show their full virtuosity it does give a snippet of their performance. Plus it’s from the exact show we went to see!)
Thinking about L’Orchestre de Contrabasses and Kronos Quartet reminds me of my original question: Beethoven and Schubert again? NO! Now, I do love to hear Beethoven and the other hundreds of dead composers but they’ve all been dead for a hundred years or more! It’s time we explored on a wider level what is actually happening today. There is so much great new music out there played by “classical” musicians that is exciting and hip and beautiful. And I’m going to be a part of it.
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Here is a link of Kronos playing one of the pieces they performed last night. Also, Kronos will be back at Duke next year for an all Steve Reich concert, which will include a world premiere of a new string quartet by Reich plus Different Trains. We are definitely going. Let me know if you want to go with us!!
The program last night consisted of Amazing Grace by Ben Johnston, Cat o’ Nine Tails by John Zorn, One Earth, One People, One Love from Sun Rings by Terry Riley, String Quartet No. 1 (world premiere) by Maria Schneider, Ov Horachamim (traditional), Tashweesh by Ramalla Underground, Tusen Tankar (A Thousand Thoughts) (traditional), and …hold me, neighbor, in this storm… by Aleksandra Vrebalov. I highly recommend you look up these composers and discover their music.
