Kronos La Strada
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The Kronos Quartet made a continuous gliding movement from one tone one culture, to a new tone a new culture during their season opener at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The 28-year-old quartet poured their souls into the foundation of modern radical expressionism; using innovative chord sequences to construct endless combinations of world music. The globetrotting program, titled Recent Kronos, harmonized the music of Eastern Europe, Mexico, Argentina, Africa, Cuba, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, and the Middle East, into an enthralling blend of musical life. The show's opener, Potassium, by Michael Gordon, used portamenti, the formerly considered schmaltzy, expressive technique of sliding the finger across the strings, to repeat and expand upon musical phrases. Also in play was the organizational technique, ostinato, which is a constantly recurring melodic fragment. In fact, the show over all seems to suggest that ostinato has replaced twelve-tone music as the organizational tool for classical music in the 21st century. Interestingly enough, ostinato is also the basis of jazz and rock music. "I think it's an important aspect," commented David Harrington, the Quartets' founder and lead violinist. Kronos Quartets' active multiculturalism involved the audience's mentality on a personal level. There was no need for explanations of the music in terms of theoretical reasoning. The real reasons for diversity are immediate to the ear. Potassium opened with an obsessively repetitive distorted lament, segueing into a woozy take on Prokofiev-style sword clanking music and then back to the opening portamenti like extremely sharp fingernails scratching one's back. Gordon confesses the piece is about nothing. However, the commitment of the Kronos Quartet gives it, like everything they perform, profound gravity. La Muerte Chiquita (the little dead girl) by Enrique Rangel is a Mexican pop salon bon bon. It is a wistful languorous waltz with muchos swooning portamenti. Kronos do for this piece, originally written for a rock band, what they did for Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze, transforming pop to classical art. Doina, by Osvaldo Golijov, the third piece on the program was immediately seductive with ravishing glistening surfaces and a relentless exhausting take-no-prisoners gypsy finale. Almost a charming MGM exoticism, Tabusounds as if it could be performed by either Korla Pandit or Yma Sumac with equal success. This Afro-Cuban piece by Margarita Lecuona was played against a tape of Louis Conte's claves, maracas and congas Vietnamese immigrant P.Q. Phan contributed three movements from his 10-movement work An Duong Vuong: Submersion in Trust and Betrayal. The second movement successfully created a mournful atmosphere reflecting the composers' tragic childhood in Vietnam. Phan says of his piece: "The complete work is an 'opera' for string quartet without voice. It is an opera because each member of the quartet takes a particular role throughout the work. The 'opera' utilizes elements from operatic traditions of Vietnam and those of Western cultures." Oasis by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh begins with a sound loop of plip-plopping raindrops playing tag with effervescent bursts of pizzicati. As the music proceeds unfortunately it's more like 12-tone music wearing a burnoose. Turkish percussionist Burhan Ocal stole the show while accompanying the Kronos on the concluding three numbers. First playing Silvestre Revueltas' Afro-Cuban Stravinsk-idolatry Sensemaya; and his own composition Dance of Rhythms, -- a fiery update of Turkish traditional music. Sandwiched in was a thousand-year-old piece of Turkish classical music, which was somewhat stiff as begets its age but had the stately loping gait of a camel. Not satisfied, Ocal, with hands moving with the inhuman speed of a hummingbird, wowed the crowd with a blistering virtuoso kick ass solo on the darbuka. Ocal and the Kronos left the crowd rhythmically pounding their feet for an encore, to which they were rewarded with another upbeat Klezmorish Turkish treat from the 18th century. Kronos have spearheaded the move of classical music in a wonderful new direction and proved there is a market and genuine passion for the new music that is emerging.
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