Quintets on iTunes

Written by five composers with unique approaches and techniques, the music on this recording imparts a lesson: the electric guitar can at once resemble the strings and distinguish itself from them, it may be used to complement the sound of the quartet, or as a radical counterpoint, but it can never be a neutral presence.

Most readers will have spent hours – perhaps many hours – of their life listening to music for string quartet. It is, after all, the most pervasive and emblemic ensemble in the world of Art Music. Many industry professionals will have dedicated literally tens, if not hundreds, of listening-hours to the string quartet. Now, after just one hour of listening to the string quartet with electric guitar, this author struggling to understand exactly what effect the ‘extraneous’ presence of the guitar has on the quartet. But it is a fascinating, tantalizing, enticing struggle that exalts both the guitar and the sound of the strings, and leaves one wanting to relive and rediscover each piece.

Elizabeth Kennedy Bayer in her intriguingly named piece Saint Quarrelsome draws the ear and imagination into a subtle game of aural cat-and-mouse. As the guitar and strings all slide through long glissandi, the ear is left wondering whether it is hearing the clean guitar sound, or the viola sul tasto. When the guitar’s attack is camouflaged by the strings’ pizz, its sustained sound emerges from the decay of the plucked chord with startling effect. Are those creeping repeated notes one of the strings playing col legno, or are they distorted finger-taps on the guitar? Little by little the repeated notes and microtonal slides overlap more and more different meters and rhythmic patterns, driving the piece in crescendo towards its climax, a triumph in which distorted power chords are a counterpoint to an almost Xenakis-like string texture.

At 10’23’’, Jeremy Vaughan’s [Composition] for 5 unfolds over a broad, slow moving but intense time-span that allows the listener to thoroughly savor each detail, each fragment of thematic material in its entirety. As new elements gradually appear and are overlapped, it becomes plain that electric guitar idioms are being cast aside, leaving the instrument naked, a provider of pure music or none at all, in the pure context of the string quartet. As the delicate accumulation of overlapping elements progresses, light touches of aleatoric rhythmic minimalism allow the stark melodic contribution of the guitar (which plays only four harmonies in the entire piece) to stand out as the driving force behind the piece’s development towards a desolate ending in diminuendo.

Sheer exuberance, optimism and baroque lavishness are instead communicated by Giovanni Albini with his Fontane Veneziane, or ‘Venetian Fountains’. Just three simple musical gestures articulate a breathless rush of joyous sound: superimposed descending scale runs, flourishes against a steady back-drop of repeated notes, and superimposed ascending scale runs. Albini’s now-familiar harmonic techniques provide forward momentum, at times seasoning the texture with surprising dissonance, creating expectation that is satisfied with effortless ease when a guitar harmonic, like the bell of San Marco’s tolling in the distance, closes the harmonic circle with the initial tone of G.

Jenny Beck’s One or Many Wolves constitutes one of the undoubted highlights of this recording, as does Mark Buller’s witty and delightful tribute to the electric guitar’s many popular idioms in his piece EDGE. Strangely, in spite of the many references to historical pop styles such as blues, jazz and rock’n’roll, the deft touch of his humor and the way in which the piece unfolds are actually reminiscent of the two giants of the String Quartet, Beethoven and Bartok, in their more lighthearted moments. Indeed, EDGE is not at all a simple satirical journey through familiar electric guitar clichés transformed by the presence of strings and intelligent writing. It is rather a fine example of crystalline musical architectonics, drawing the listener along a formal arc of four minutes with refreshing gusto, until the melodic and harmonic fragments introduced at the beginning finally saturate the musical space creating a rich texture that vibrates in the ear long after the final note has rung.

After listening to the complete recording of Quintets one spontaneously wonders how composers of the past ever managed to write for string quartet without its energetic and versatile modern sparring partner, the electric guitar. A most rewarding listening experience.