By MARK MORFORD
The Harlem Quartet, newcomers to Valley Classical Concerts (formerly Music in Deerfield), played at Sage Hall of Smith College Saturday. The program was unusual and their performances were brilliant throughout.
The Quartet was founded in 2006 by the Sphinx Organization, whose mission is to build diversity in classical music and encourage access to classical music in communities that otherwise would have no such opportunity. The ensemble, accordingly, has played throughout the United States, Canada, Central and South America, and South Africa (under the auspices of the U.S. State Department).
They have played with many distinguished soloists, both classical virtuosos and jazz soloists and composers. So in less than 10 years, they have caused many lovers of classical music to think again how to define “classical” and to welcome the inclusion of other types of music in programs still called “classical.”
Saturday’s program began with Mendelssohn’s Quartet in E minor, Opus 44, No. 2, composed in 1837, when the composer was 28 years old, 10 years before his death. It is a cheerful work, full of beautiful melodies and lovely solos for the viola and the cello.
These players, respectively, Jaime Amado and Felix Umansky, were given complete deference by the two violinists, something not always done, even in professional quartets. It was interesting, further, that their instruments were completely different in age, Amado’s viola being 6 years old, and Umansky’s cello being made in France in the 17th century and having a captivatingly mellow sound. Yet the modern viola, played by a brilliant musician, was hardly inferior to the cello made more than three centuries ago.
The central music of the program was two iconic jazz pieces, arranged for string quartet by David Glenn. “The Girl from Ipanema,” composed in 1962 by Antônio Carlos Jobim, is full of engaging rhythm and melody, and immediately became known and loved all over the world, as it still is, 50 years later.
Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night in Tunisia” was composed 20 years earlier, at a time when many in the audience were (often surreptitiously) listening to the new music with its magical rhythms and enthralling combinations of instruments such as the saxophone and drum. Well-arranged for a string group, this music still holds its own and was greeted with applause worthy of young jazz enthusiasts.
Finally, the Quartet returned to the 19th century with Edvard Grieg’s Quartet in G minor, Opus 27, composed in 1877 and 1878. John Montanari, artistic director of Valley Classical Concerts, quotes from a letter written by Grieg in 1878, where Grieg describes his new quartet as “Not planned to be meat for small minds! It aims at breadth, vigor, flight of imagination, and, above all, fullness of tone for the instruments for which it is written.”
This is a perfect description of the performance by the Harlem Quartet. Most people who are familiar with Norway’s pre-eminent composer could mention the Peer Gynt and Holberg suites, and the A minor Piano Concerto. The string quartet is undeservedly little known and seldom played in this country.
It is a gorgeous piece of romantic music, yet one that looked forward to a new style of string quartets, which, as Amado pointed out, influenced Debussy, whose own quartet was composed in 1893 and changed the composition of string quartets forever.
The Harlem Quartet played the piece with love, enthusiasm and passion, a glorious finale to an absorbing evening of music.