Classical Sonoma: The Jasper String Quartet Captivates and Enthralls
Classical Sonoma
The Jasper String Quartet Captivates and Enthralls
Written by Abby Wasserman
“Vivian Fung’s Quartet No. 2 (2009) was introduced by Ms. Kim, who pointed out that a strong sense of place connected the three works on the program. Ms. Fung, who lives in the Bay Area, joined her to note that she and the Jasper have a fruitful, decades-long relationship. She expressed appreciation for their collaboration. The work’s opening theme is a Chinese folksong that Ms. Fung’s mother used to hum around the house. This theme occurs in several of the movements and is obviously the heart of the composition. Its six movements are played with the briefest of pauses between. The calibration of tonal colors throughout was a tightly woven pattern out of which colorful notes popped to the fore before subsiding. “Introduction” began with the theme as a chorale, very slowly and nostalgically, conveying sorrow and loss. A single plucked cello note marked its conclusion. It was followed by “Of the Wind,” a rushing slide down the scale, a feeling of tree branches being whipped to and fro shedding twigs in a furious ostinato. The third, “Of Birds and Insects,” was rich with string glissandos and trills, altogether delightful from the opening call of a cuckoo through an air-scape of busy insects. The musicians’ spiccato bows skittered along their instruments’ strings like hopping crickets, creating a rhythmic dance of nature. It was electrifying.
The folksong theme returned in the fourth movement with a difference: each musician played one note at a time, passing on the next, like a round robin of people telling a story one-word-by-one-word yet making it sound intelligible. It’s obvious that Ms. Fung and the Quartet relish a challenge because it came off as smoothly as whipped cream with spice. According to the program notes, the term for this in German is klangfarbenmelodie, or tone-color-melody. The fifth movement, “Of Tribes and Villages,” was compellingly rhythmic while also evoking a sense of loss, possibly the loss that one suffers when leaving their home country to start anew. The final movement, “Of Ghosts and Memories,” reprised the Chinese folk song, again played as a chorale interspersed with memory fragments of the past.