String Quartet Shares Singing Tone with Eagle Rock

Marking their return to following a nine year hiatus, the Marian Anderson String Quartet presented an eclectic program titled “Not the Same Ol’ Song and Dance” at Herrick Chapel last Friday. The concert, which concluded a musical residency for the quartet that included a masterclass for Occidental string students, featured works based on songs and dances of varying regions and periods.

“The program reflects our commitment to diversity of expression and the ideals of Marian Anderson,” explained Cellist Prudence McDaniel in post-concert comments to Patch. “Marian Anderson embodied all the ideals we strive for—she broke down barriers through artistic excellence.” 

The Quartet formed in 1989 and soon went on to make history by winning the International Cleveland Quartet competition in 1991, becoming the first African-American ensemble to win a major classical music competition.

To mark this milestone, the Quartet, then called the Chaminade String Quartet, asked legendary contralto Marian Anderson to become her namesake. The great singer heartily approved. Shortly thereafter, the newly renamed Quartet performed for Anderson and her nephew, conductor James DePriest, as a demonstration of thanks.

Friday night’s program, informatively introduced from the stage by alternating members of the Quartet, began with a significant work for string quartet by prominent African-American composer William Grant Still, Dances of Panama.

The work evokes four traditional Panamanian dances, utilizing all the effects available to string instruments to convey the percussive and lyrical traits of the original dance music, including vigorous rapping on the instruments. The work was evidently conceived before the era in which violin sales reached the millions of dollars (though admittedly the viola part seemed to call for the most knuckle-rapping). 

The next work, String Quartet No. 1 by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, African-American composer of the generation after Still, was also based on an outside reference, this time a song: the negro spiritual Calvary. 

“Marian Anderson always ended her programs with a spiritual,” noted second violinist Nicole Cherry, “making it especially fitting for us to perform this work.” The richly textured, timbrally driven work featured simple, haunting melodies set over ethereal, mystic harmonies, at times reminiscent of Vaughn Williams. The MASQ’s sweeping lyricism and vocal tone was at its most poignant in this work. 

The program’s first half concluded with a work for string quartet by the late composer of tangos and other traditional genres of Argentina—the renowned Astor Piazzolla. As cellist Prudence McDaniel explained, Piazzolla studied with the influential teacher of composition, Nadia Boulanger, in Paris (along with everyone who was anyone among 20^th-century composers). 

Boulanger influenced Piazzolla to represent the voice of Argentina in his compositions in writing his sophisticated, concert versions of the Argentine Tango. Piazzolla’s work for string quartet, Four for Tango, was the selection taken up by the MASQ to send the audience off to intermission and keep them coming back for more. 

The work, performed in a sizzling rendition by the Quartet, was full of the dramatic contrasts between strident and lyrical so often associated with Piazzolla. Yet, while the MASQ did its part to full effect, the instrumentation seemed conspicuously lacking the timbral variety—notably the sounds of the bandaneo and piano—that promotes the sense of unforgettable, soaring flair that Piazzolla’s music can embody at its best.

Following a brief intermission, the MASQ resumed and concluded its program for the evening with the monumental String Quartet, op. 13 by Feliz Mendelssohn, German Romantic composer of the ubiquitous Wedding March and other famous tunes. Contextualizing remarks by first violinist and founding member Marianne Henry were as thorough and enlightening as a lecture in music appreciation class (which members of the quartet teach at Blinn College in Texas), yet without the pressure of an exam. 

The quartet performed excerpts from the piece, demonstrating notable segments including a hymn, operatic recitative, and melodic writing resembling folk music. In keeping with the program’s theme, the piece quotes the opening three-note melodic motive from a song written by Mendelssohn himself, titled Is it true?

After an appropriately lengthy introductory discussion, the shimmering sounds of Mendelssohn’s classical textures and romantic melodies resounded throughout Herrick Chapel. Mendelssohn’s learned fugal writing was effectively counterbalanced by eruptions of dramatic spontaneity and long, singing lines.

The lyrical moments were handled with great depth of tone and tenderness. The intense chiaroscuro vocal character heard in the Mendelssohn and elsewhere on the program might well have struck a chord with the Marian Anderson String Quartet’s famous namesake inspiration.