Classical Music Geek: Album Evaluation: “Severe Enterprise” by Spektral Quartet

And I oop–

WHO: Spektral Quartet
WHAT: New works by Sky Macklay, David Reminick, and Chris Fisher-Lochhead, plus a Haydn quartet
RELEASED: January 2016
LABEL: Sono Luminus

Problem: I will write this publish earlier than my oxtails come out of the strain cooker in half an hour. For these of you who care: onions, garlic, inventory, and pink wine (a bit of bit for the oxtails, a bit of bit for me 😉). That is it.

Classical music is just too rattling severe. Have you ever ever dropped your program throughout a bit? Folks will actually have a look at you as in the event that they wish to throw you off a bridge.

Classical music hasn’t at all times been so severe — you may thank Richard Wagner for that — however not often is it overtly humorous (barring opera buffa, after all). Haydn had his moments, even Mozart and Beethoven stepped into parody-land as soon as in awhile.

For this album, The Spektral Quartet requested three composers to strive their arms at “humorous music” with wildly completely different outcomes. Sky Macklay composed a bit that consists fully of cadences — Many Many Cadences because the title so creatively describes. The cadence, after all, capabilities as a tonal stabilizer. Macklay forces the quartet to hop between cadences with such velocity that any sense of stability is misplaced, regardless that there may be theoretically a “stabilization” each few seconds.

David Reminick selected absurdist poetry as his place to begin; The Ancestral Mousetrap requires the quartet to sing a libretto by poet Russell Edson. They sing very nicely, proving my principle that instrumentalists are typically higher singers than singers. One of many members appears like Elvis Costello — whoever does the majority of the singing on the 4th motion.

The ultimate premiere on the album, Chris Fisher-Lochhead’s Hack, makes use of the devices of the quartet to mannequin the sounds produced by standup comedians throughout their routines. My linguist mind was intrigued. On the album, it would not evoke human speech a lot, however it’s so cool after they map the composition over the comic’s bit. Both approach, cool piece.

After which in the course of all this enjoyable new music got here the Haydn “Joke” quartet. I’ve performed it. It is humorous. But additionally, I type of want that they had commissioned one other new piece? I am not precisely complaining, I am at all times in favor of a very good efficiency of a very good Haydn quartet. However it additionally appeared a contact misplaced.

Anyway, nice album. Go pay attention. My oxtails are calling.