Bernard Herrmann was proud of the film scores he wrote for Alfred Hitchcock, and some of the music the American composer created in the 1950s and 1960s for the British master of suspense has become justly celebrated in its own right.
The Delray String Quartet opened its 11th season Nov. 2 at the Colony Hotel in Delray Beach with a program of three works that included a suite of music from Herrmann’s score for Psycho (1960), condensed by Delray’s violist, Richard Fleischman, for string quartet from the original for string orchestra (and dispensing as well with a shower, knife and a naked Janet Leigh).
The music itself has a wonderfully intense sense of drama, and Fleischman has done a good job of reducing it to its essence. The large audience at the Colony that Sunday afternoon loved this selection, audibly so during the music for the attack, with its well-known high-register short glissandi for Norman Bates’s fatal strokes. The only caveat was that the middle of the suite, which contains mostly music of an expectant, brooding nature, is a little uneventful, and could be further condensed without too much difficulty. But this was a good idea, and the foursome brought it off handily.
The two large works on either side of the Herrmann were the String Quartet No. 21 (in D, K. 575) of Mozart, and the splendid but solitary String Quartet of Maurice Ravel.
The Delray quartet historically has been more comfortable with music of the late Romantic eras and the 20th century, and its ventures into the standard Viennese canon have had variable results; its Haydn tends to be better than its Mozart and its Beethoven. But the group always programs an example or two of these works, and so it was that it opened its first concert of the season with the Mozart quartet, written in 1789 toward the end of the composer’s life.
And this was quite a creditable Mozart, a good bit better than the Delray’s previous Mozart outings, primarily because it was much more scrupulous about rhythmic precision, steadiness of tempo and intonation. Everything is exposed in Mozart, and performing it well takes a lot of concentration. The first movement had a strong sense of openness and confidence, with the quartet playing forcefully at a good, effective tempo. The first part of the movement was even better in the repeat, and one only wished for a more emphatic coloring of the return of the opening theme in a new key at the outset of the development.
The cello part of this quartet is most unusual in that Mozart uses it often like a big violin, with solo parts in its higher registers throughout. Cellist Claudio Jaffe played all of these well, with no sign of strain or awkwardness, and in the slow second movement, performed with admirable elegance by the whole quartet, his concertante work had an expressive quality that was urgent and highly communicative without being Romantic.
His approach was the same, and just as effective in the minuet, which the four could have played with a stronger sense of forward motion, and in the finale, a wonderfully forward-looking piece of writing that emancipates the four players in a way few composers had done at that time. The tricky triplet tradeoff before the recapitulation was very effective, and the ensemble overall was laudable in a movement that can come apart at any time thanks to its smorgasbord of rhythmic figures and textures.
In general, this was one of the most satisfying Mozart outings for the Delray String Quartet. If it lacked the high polish of a classic reading by a quartet that specializes in such repertoire, it nevertheless marked real progress in how this group tackles this core repertory, and it was most enjoyable to hear.
The second half featured the Ravel quartet, one of the literature’s supreme masterpieces, not just for its beguiling melodic material but above all for its astonishing sonic variety. The work is a master class in how to get remarkably powerful, memorable effects from the four instruments, and a performance of the work is always an event.
The Delray has played this work before in concert, and its style is very much in its element, with sharply edged emotional contours and a lush armory of melody and harmony. The group played it very well, clearly enjoying it and reveling in its brilliant coloring.
The beautiful first movement was by turns tender and mysterious, then explosive at the climax, and well-navigated by each of the players (Mei Mei Luo and Tomas Cotik are the violinists, along with Fleischman and Jaffé). For the 2-against-3 second movement, with its aggressive pizzicato opening, the Delrays took rather a slower tempo than usual, and it felt somewhat pokey.
The slow third movement, on the other hand, was excellently done, with only a slightly out-of-tune closing measure to mar things; the quartet walked the highly perfumed world of Ravel’s exotic garden with surpassing sensitivity and lovely solo playing in particular from Cotik and Fleischman. The quartet brought huge and unified energy to the finale, with its odd time signature handled with expert ensemble, and the contrasting music in the middle, which recalls the atmosphere of the neoclassical opening of the work, played with a feeling of distant, pale memory that contrasted nicely with the rest of the movement.
Somewhat greater contrast, particularly in the first movement, would have given the music more color, but it was made up for by the Delray’s approach to the third and fourth movements, which had the right dynamic variety for the composer’s sudden stylistic shifts, a characteristic central to this composer’s voice, and to this magnificent piece.
The Ukrainian pianist Marina Radiushina joins the Delray String Quartet for its Dec. 12 and 14 concerts, which will feature the Dvorak Quintet in A major (Op. 81), an arrangement of Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, and the Hungarian Dances of the Czech light-music composer Franz Drdla. Concerts are at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 12 at All Saints Episcopal Church ($30), and at 4 p.m. Dec. 14 at the Colony Hotel in Delray Beachn($35). Call 561-213-4138 or visit www.delraystringquartet.com.
Editor’s note: The posting of this review was delayed by technical difficulties.