Symphony Sounds String Quartet in Wicker Park: the right talent, the right music, the right time -- heavenly
Symphony Sounds String Quartet presented an excellent performance consisting of works from the Classical, Romantic, and Modern periods for the July Concert in Wicker Park Schiller Grove on July 8. Everyone was in a great mood, the heat wave ended, everyone was out to enjoy the day in the very crowded Wicker Park.
Park visitors were treated to compositions by Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Bedřich Smetana, and the Beatles. The musical works were expertly performed and well received by the audience that was as diverse as the music itself. For some, this was their first classical music concert; others were long-term classical music enthusiasts. Yet, everyone enjoyed the event and expressed how impressed they were by the quality of the performance given by this professional string quartet with members
(Violin 1), Rachelle Elizabeth Puccini (Violin 2), Ryan Loeckel (Viola) and Sarah Marsh (Cello and Quartet Manager).
In addition, the performers enjoyed performing in Wicker Park. They took turns introducing the compositions, giving information on the composers, the background of the compositions, and interesting facts about performing them, giving the audience a key into the aesthetics of the composers, their time periods and the work. The audience appreciated this information and many told us that the combination of music history and live performance was a great addition to the Wicker Park Advisory Council’s summer programming.
The music education taught at the performances compliments Magic Boat’s 1st Sunday performances that are devoted to teaching children about one of the composers that Symphony Sounds String Quartet will perform the 2nd Sunday of each month. In these puppet shows, The Magic Boat teams up with Easel Art, Evolve Dance, and the Culture Lady to teach the interaction between music, dance, visual arts and the history of Wicker Park at the time that the chosen composer lived.
The program opened with Boccherini’s La Musica Notturna Della Strade Di Madrid (Night Music of the Streets of Madrid) (1780). Boccherini moved to Madrid in 1761, after receiving the position of the court composer for Spanish Infante Luis Antonio, the younger brother of the King of Spain. The composition is an excellent example of program music from the classical period; it illustrates Boccherini’s memories of Madrid’s night life and the characters that inhabited it. Church bells, a soldier’s drum, a minuet of "Blind Beggars," a rosary, street singers called Los Manolos or lower-class loud mouths, and the soldiers marching in a heavily metered retreat at the sounding of the curfew are illustrated in the seven movements of the music.
To depict this variety of elements that he saw on the streets, Boccherini uses many creative techniques to enhance the quartet’s conventional timbres and the techniques of how the instruments are conventionally played. For instance, the composer directs the players to hold the instruments like a lute or guitar and then to strum or pick them, rather than to use the bow. At other times, the performers use the bow to create percussive sounds like a drum. Together, the string quartet’s range of timbres was enhanced and numerous affects were employed to successfully create a more realistic and believable interpretation of the various scenarios found in the seven movements.
In the Passacaglia movement that depicted Los Manolos, lower-class loudmouths, singing as they passed each other walking down the street, these enhancements were particularly successful. The violins and viola strummed their instruments (pure rhythm - helping us image walking, meandering down the street) as Sarah March’s cello bowed a bawdy, song-like jovial roly-poly type melody on top of it with the greatest of finesse. The composition ended with a highly rhythmic section depicting the angular, sharp edged, directed, marching patterns of the soldier’s retreating at the end of the night to their quarters. This performance was as exciting to watch as it was to hear. It was evident that the performers totally enjoyed the work.
The previous week at the Magic Boat music education performance, Kerry Peagram (Easel Art) worked with the children to create a banner for the concert that combined the minuet of the "Blind Beggars" and the retreat of the Madrid Soldier’s at the sound of curfew. Together, they choose the sharp peaks of a mountain range to resemble a group of staunch soldiers marching across a smooth textured sky, placed behind a serene green field (Minuet of Blind Beggars) that the children painted into the foreground. The banner picked up the "formal" dance quality of both of these movements and was hung behind the string quartet at the performance.
Next the audience was treated to a superb performance of Mozart’s Divertimento for String Quartet in D major, K. 136/125a (1772). Mozart was 16 years old and held the position of Court concertmaster to Hieronymus Coloredo, Prince Archbishop of Salzburg when he composed this work, which is the first in a series of works entitled the "Salzburg" symphonies. These symphonies featured three movements and could be played by a string quartet or a string orchestra. The Divertimento is a work that is usually lighter in nature and intended to elicit amusement, diversion, entertainment, or even table music. The first movement (Allegro) features the 1st violin as soloist. Matthew Cataldi’s performance had just the right amount of energy, spirit, and "playfulness in it." In the second movement (Andante), the group had a seamless sense of phrasing that led the audience on a mesmerizing trip through a labyrinth of moods that were surprisingly created by a 16-year-old, Mozart. Then, in the third movement (Presto), we experienced a speeding, 18th century court game, bouncing here and there and back again – precise, but filled with unexpected turns that led us back to where we began, but not quite back, but farther. This was a great work to experience in the outdoor setting.
For a total change of mood, we were taken to the 1960s to hear numerous Beatle songs transcribed for string quartet. Ryan Loeckel (Viola) introduced each work, engaging and teasing the audience into a mood that was playful, but effectively assisted all of us to travel to the Beatles hay day – even those who never lived then. What a treat; the work was applauded by all.
Then, to complete the program, the most incredible work of the performance from the Romantic period of music was performed: Smetana’s String Quartet #1 in E minor (From My Life -1876). In 1876, Smetana moved from Prague to Jabkenice. Now deaf, he was hoping that his affliction would be temporary. In Jabkenice, he began work on the quartet that would illustrate the course of his life "using four instruments speaking among themselves in something like a friendly circle." The printed music includes notes that came from letters that Smetana wrote to his friends. They describe the contents of each movement. He introduces the composition with the "call of fate," the main motive of the first movement (Allegro vivo appassionato), played superbly by Ryan Leckel (Viola). This first movement then proceeds to express his love of art in his youth, his inclinations toward romanticism in both music and in his life, and his "inexpressible yearning for something, that I could neither express or make a definite picture of it in my mind, and also a warning concerning my future misfortune." The underbelly of the work propels us forward, but we hear the "call of fate," we move again and then hear it again. Over and over the music propels us to all spaces and all times, but the theme reoccurs again, tension – release - tension predicting the final fate – endless, permanent deafness.
In the second movement (Allegro moderato á la Polka), we get a break, time away from hearing and thinking about that ominous theme and in party mood of his childhood visiting county common folks as well as aristocrats. Of the third movement (Largo sostenuto) the composer says, "Reminds me of the beauty of my first love to the girl, who later on became my faithful wife."
The fourth movement (Vivace) is propelling us so fast that we can’t see where we are going, but we are going, going somewhere. It is a fun time – all color, free, expansive, and fast. It all seems so fun and playful and so, so, fast and then, the theme of the first movement returns. Smetana says about the journey we go on in the last movement: "The recognition of national realization in our beautiful art, the pleasure derived from the already found way to national art, the happy success along this way, until a terribly sounding high tone starts ringing in my ear as a warning of my cruel fate.”
The Smetana quartet was a painful, yet incredibly beautiful piece of music. Thank you to Smetana and Symphony Sounds String Quartet for the opportunity to experience the music in the park.
The lineup for August is:
- August 5 - 1ST SUNDAYS Education – Playground at 11 a.m. – noon
Learn about music and learn to translate it into art and dance. Children will learn about Antonin Dvorak - August 12 – 2nd Sunday Performance - Schiller Grove at 11a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Symphony Sounds: Bach Brandenburg #3 in G major, BWV 1048, Mozart String Quartet #4 in C Major, Dvorak Quartet #12, op 96 (American)
and Wicker Park Choral Singers - COLLABORATING ARTISTS – Links to Our Collaborators Education: Magic Boat Puppet Theater, Easel Art, Evolve Dance, The Culture Lady Performance: Symphony Sounds String Quartet, Wicker Park Choral Singers
SPONSORS
WPB (SSA#33), WPB Chamber of Commerce, Cat & Mouse Game Store, Chicago Park District, Friends of the Parks, CCI-Greenheart, Wicker Park Apartments, Friends of Bloomingdale Trail, The Trust for Public Land, Littlerock Construction, Mosaic Church, Urban Encounter, Wicker Park Advisory Council, Wicker Park Garden Club, Our Urban Times, Pipeline