THE GLOBE AND MAIL, Toronto
Saturday, February 22, 2003

Cue these violins for emotion
By ROBERT HARRIS special to The Globe and Mail
The Penderecki Quartet at Jane Mallett Theatre in Toronto on Thursday

Conventional wisdom has it that the late 1960s were a desert for new music, full of arcane avant-garde experiments and self-indulgent compositions that have thankfully been replaced by a return to melody and harmony in the past 30 years or so.

That that analysis is completely wrong, and that the works of the high avant-garde of the late sixties will one day be valued considerably more highly than the vapid, faux-tonal works of today was the unmistakable impression left on Thursday night by a superb concert by the Penderecki Quartet. In works by their namesake, Krzysztof Penderecki, and the Hungarian Gyorgy Ligeti, both composed in 1968, as well as with an impressive debut performance of a work by Ottawa composer Deirdre Piper, the quartet demonstrated both a remarkable range of technical excellence and emotional sweep.

There is something about the open-ended character of the violin family, each instrument of which is capable of the widest range of musical sounds, that lends it so perfectly to the imaginative outbursts of new music. And on Thursday night, each instrument in the ensemble was put through quite a workout -- bowed, plucked, batted, struck, retuned in the middle of performance, producing unearthly harmonics and guttural scrapings.

These techniques, all expertly rendered by the Penderecki Quartet, were especially evident in the Penderecki and Ligeti pieces, where originality in means of expression went hand in hand with emotional depth and formal clarity. Yes, the works of the late sixties are challenging and break all the traditional rules, but that is their strength. When they work, and are beautifully played, they open up musical and emotional possibilities that even the sweetest succession of major and minor chords can never approach.

And the Penderecki Quartet approached their musical task with style and dedication. Their playing was impeccable, and their expressive range wide and satisfying. Lead violin Jeremy Bell kept the group on track with playing at times aggressive and delicate, but all four members of the quartet more than held their own.

The quartet also provided the singular gift that only certain musicians can offer a composer, a superb first performance, in this case of the String Quartet by Deirdre Piper. Stuck in between some pretty impressive company, Piper more than held her own, using some of the same techniques as her avant-garde predecessors, but weaving a quite personal amalgam of jagged and continuous musical lines to produce a work that held together extremely well.

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