| Review by Beagle May 8, 2008 (2 of 2 found this review helpful)
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THE SOUND
This is good sound, the kind of instrumental clarity that one expects from SACD (although it lacks the precision of DXD and IsoMike, or even AliaVox and Water Lily): the instruments are distinct voices and very string-like. The sound stage may be somewhat narrow, and the venue perhaps a wee bit too cavernous, but all in all, the sound is not a liability.
THE MUSICIANSHIP
When I saw the name ‘Harrington String Quartet’ my heart lept at the prospect of hearing at least David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet. A little web-research disabused me of that expectation; there are no KQ alumni here. Harrington’s cornerstone is cellist Emmanuel Lopez, with a variable selection of ‘youngsters’ on the other three chairs. However, I am very happy to report that HSQ is very Kronos-like: agile, energetic and blessed with the power to breathe life into music which is still ‘wet behind the ears’. Their contemporaneity is no surprise, since they have recorded on the envelope-pushing CRI and Albany labels. The upper strings do excellent cantabile playing, which in this case means ‘singing the blues’. Likewise the viola whenever it gets a line to itself; Lopez’ cello is discretely supportive. Together they manage impeccable ensemble – and that in unchartered waters, i.e. there are no touchstone performances to immitate (theirs is the touchstone). Now if we could only drag this foursome in front of an IsoMike or ….
THE MUSIC
I knew Daniel McCarthy (1955-) just as a name, another name among hundreds of such ridiculously younger than me, who’d published a quartet or two. What are the odds that his compositions are worth an hour of my time? At least a hundred-to-one, I estimate. Wolfgang Rihm (1952-) was preceeded by a bit of a reputation before I heard his music – but his quartets are little more than academic smart-assery of the ‘plink-plank-plonk’ school. So one lives in hope that the taste of the labels and their artists will winnow the grain from the chaff – and because quartets are still rarities in the SACD universe, I was brave and ordered this disc.
Yes, it is indeed ‘new music’, in the sense that you’ve never heard it before – so listen to it again and again until it becomes, as it is this evening, a musical space which is still revealing its depths but pleasantly so. If you pre-judged McCarthy by his titles (‘Stomp’, ‘Vision in Funk’), you’d expect as I did to hear pop music on strings. Not so; McCarthy’s writing is well within the walls of artful composition. His melodic lines are more stream-of-consciousness than rhythmic, but they have enough internal drive to carry the listener forward in comfort. He blends and separates the instruments in classical dialogue form – one would think he’d studied with Haydn, were it not for the modern twang of his motifs.
This music has ‘grown on me’ over the last week, more than any other contemporary chamber music on SACD. It may not be ‘your cuppa’ at the moment, but it might be after a bit of listening.
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