Fragmented concerts can feel slapdash, no matter how refined the performance. Why play, for example, a single movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet no. 15 in A minor? If you’re going to go there, go there for real.
There are, of course, rule-proving exceptions. Anna Clyne nestled her own compositions within sections of Bach’s The Art of Fugue and used Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint as a centerpiece with the St Luke’s Chamber Ensemble at the Dimenna Center for Classical Music. It was a bold gesture to be sure, held together by the personable charm of her presentation – she explained at the outset that Bach and Reich are two of her primary influences – and with a through-line of video accompaniment for most of the music.
The Art of Fugue is often referred to as “unfinished” (the story of Bach dying at the desk while writing it, apparently concocted by one of his sons, was repeated for centuries), but a more compelling theory is that it’s a puzzle containing enough information to complete the final variation. Either way, its lack of resolution, or “choose your own adventure” nature, invites repurposing. The concert opened with a string quartet arrangement of its first two contrapunti, Jesse Mills’ assured violin leading the first, the spritely cello of Daire FitzGerald initiating the second.
An animation by Josh Dorman for Resting in the Green, from Clyne’s The Violin (for two violins), seemed like maps and diagrams drawing themselves, with bits occasionally coming unfixed and floating about. Clyne’s music was likewise illusory, one violin repeating a theme, the other complementing it with electronic delay, allowing parts to be doubled and creating something that wasn’t quite a string quartet and, even while gaining mass, feeling lonely and pensive.
Her Reveal/Pardes, played by violist Dana Kelley against five prerecorded viola tracks and a voice reading 16th-century text, was accompanied by a film by Jyll Bradley incorporating her own sculpture. It proved to be exceedingly busy; string phrases repeating and stacked alongside all the lines and shadows and colors in the video as if to induce seasickness. It was hard to say if that was the intended effect, but it led nicely into Reich’s New York Counterpoint, with video animation by Bradley suggesting, perhaps, busy city streets in geometric shapes viewed from above. Reich’s piece, though, suggests someone who knows how to move through crowds. It’s eminently orderly. The video sold short the exacting complexity of Reich’s construction, although Jon Manasse’s clarinet pitch was impeccable and his tone nicely ragged at moments.
Woman Holding a Balance proved to be the evening’s strongest Bradley/Clyne collaboration. It again featured Bradley’s sculptures, this time with a spoken text by David Ward about Vermeer. It worked so well that the string quartet could have been “just” soundtrack, but stood gracefully on its own when the attention was shifted from the appealing bright colors of the video,
Like a Bach suite, the concert folded in on itself, with another section of Clyne’s The Violin before concluding with Contrapunti 3 and 4. This duet followed a similar strategy to the first, but with simpler themes, which was a relief. The program, although not quite an hour yet, had been aurally and visually taxing, emotionally and intellectually exhausting, all in fairly enticing ways. Even the low points spurred thought and reaction, with Bach’s Art gently massaging the imagination for a finale.
