Dvořák — Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat Major Op. 87
Brahms — G minor Piano Quartet Op. 25
The Close Encounters With Music concert series kicked off its 24th season Saturday night at The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. After cellist and Artistic Director Yehuda Hanani had delivered his customary pre-concert talk, he was joined onstage by pianist Walter Ponce, violinist Ara Gregorian, and violist Xiao-Dong Wang. A few moments later, the three string players glanced at one another furtively, inhaled loudly, and launched into the bold opening measures of Dvořák’s second piano quartet. They were answered directly by the piano, and it soon became clear that a conspiracy was afoot.
All chamber music is a conspiracy. Or at least it ought to be. Here’s how it works: A small cell of musicians hatches a plot in secret, then executes it in the presence of a live audience, the members of which marvel at the players’ ability to read one another’s minds. At first glance, the musicians seem to be merely reproducing the notes on a printed page — in perfect synchrony. But a closer look reveals a scheme of surreptitious, real-time communication between co-conspirators.
Anyone could tell that Mr. Hanani’s ensemble had been performing this piece together for years. But, in fact, they hadn’t. They’d been rehearsing it for just a few days. When you witness a performance by musicians of this caliber, you are seeing the result not only of innate musical talent but also about ten thousand hours of practice that each musician must invest before reaching the level of virtuosity audiences take for granted.
Scientists at the University of Birmingham have analyzed the way musicians in a group performance make millisecond timing corrections to maintain synchrony. A co-author of the study, Adrian Bradbury (of the Royal Academy of Music) says that live interaction between musicians on stage is often the most electrifying element of a performance. This isn’t exactly rocket science, and it certainly isn’t news to performing musicians. And, while it’s commendable that scientists have recognized the importance of dynamic, real-time interaction in ensemble performances, it’s no secret that everyone from J. S. Bach to the Rolling Stones to the Emerson String Quartet has well understood the virtues of tight ensemble playing. Synchrony between players is, of course, an aesthetic matter, but it’s fun to see how scientists have found a way to quantify it.
In any case, these musicians played with excellent synchrony. But, equally important, they made it clear from the outset that their hearts were in the music, which really is necessary when performing just about any piece by Dvořák. As a composer, he always wore his heart on his sleeve and knew how to make it directly manifest to his listeners. Not many string players are able to convey this with their faces quite as well as, say, Mick Jagger or Keith Richards. But Mr. Hanani is naturally good at it, and violinist Ara Gregorian is positively expert at it.
Dvořák’s second piano quartet is physically demanding, owing mainly to the sheer exuberance of his music. So one could forgive the players if they had held back a tiny bit to conserve their energy for — just ahead on the program — an equally demanding piece by Johannes Brahms that ends in one helluva finale. (More about that finale in a minute.) But they held back nothing.
With most of Dvořák’s music, the listening experience is largely a case of what-you-hear-is-what-you-get: He presents his ideas in a forthright manner and has few ulterior motives. His music is usually accessible on the first listen, the best example being his ninth symphony, “From the New World.”
With Brahms it’s a bit different. In his G minor piano quartet, he draws the listener in immediately, then proceeds to reveal deeper and deeper levels of melodic complexity as he develops his motives using a technique known as “developing variation.” Using this technique, Brahms organized his notes within a traditional framework while at the same time obeying his personal creative impulses. It may not sound “pioneering” at first listen, but with his ingenious use of this technique, the “conservative” Brahms ultimately ended up giving Arnold Schoenberg a basis for establishing the Second Viennese School. It’s also one of the qualities of his music that has allowed it to endure. Like Beethoven before him, Brahms loved to build rich tapestries of music out of a few simple bits. And, also like Beethoven, he loved to develop his ideas through the meticulous use of counterpoint.
Of the twelve movements from Brahms’s three piano quartets, the most popular by a long shot is the “Gypsy” finale — Rondo alla Zingarese — of his G minor quartet. Brahms’s first biographer, Max Kalbeck, reports that when the piece premiered in 1861, “the most appeal and strongest applause came from the Hungarian finale.“
And that was exactly the case on Saturday night. The crowd went wild.
