Momenta Quartet opens Ives festival with illuminating looks back and forward
The Momenta Quartet’s annual Momenta Festival, now in its ninth year, is always a highlight of the classical music season. Momenta is one of the many fine string quartets on the scene, adept in repertoire across more than 200 years, especially the modern and contemporary eras.
The festival is also programmed by the musicians themselves, so each concert is an opportunity to hear what matters most to the players. And on top of that, concerts are free. (Reservations are required for the final two concerts which are at the Americas Society.)
There’s an even more important thing to recommend the festival this year: it is organized around Charles Ives’ 150th birthday, one of the unfortunately very few events in New York City dedicated to the most important figure in American classical music. Momenta is setting Ives’ string quartet music with that of other composers, to show both his context and his legacy. Friday night’s terrific opening concert at the Broadway Presbyterian Church showed off the reward of both the quartet’s thinking and playing.
This concert was curated by cellist Michael Haas (the other members, violinists Emilie-Anne Gendron and Alex Shiozaki and violist Stephanie Griffin will each get their turns). He surrounded the Chorale from Ives’ String Quartet No. 1 and his Scherzo “Holding Your Own!” From A Set of Three Short Pieces with Timo Andres Thrive on Routine, Henry Cowell’s String Quartet No. 3, “United Quartet” (introduced with a brief guest lecture from Joel Sachs, conductor and Cowell’s biographer) and Dvořák’s String Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 97, with guest violist Dana Kelley.
The newer music refreshed the older, and vice-versa, and Momenta’s playing was energetic, skillful, and vibrant. Andres’ piece is a string quartet in one movement divided into four connected sections, built in a classic manner but with a modern sensibility. Angular, downward-drilling lines create a rhythmic framework, and they smooth out into delicate, luminous harmonies and slower passages. Momenta’s warm, slightly grainy sound, and robust and agile playing, brought out the soulful beauty in the music and the solid architecture.
The two Ives pieces followed. Both brief, Haas described them as appetizers for the rest of the festival, when Momenta will play Ives’ complete works for quartet. The ensemble sound they cultivated in the first piece was even richer in the lovely chorale, the modulations moving with a very American sense of optimism for the future. The wild scherzo is irreverent in the classic idea of the music as a joke, and Momenta’s conviction brought a force of clarity to what in less confident hands can be knotty and confusing.
As with Ives, it’s a thrill to hear Cowell’s music live, and the String Quartet No. 3 is emblematic of his work. Written with skill and concision, it comes out of what seems to be an imaginary continent, one that connects Ireland to Persia by way of the Balkans. Momenta’s rhythmic sense was excellent, essential for the spirit of this music, which always seems to dance and sing at the same time, wordless but communicating across all cultures. Details of phrasing and articulation honored Cowell’s global outlook.
After intermission, Dvořák’s marvelous Op. 97 Quintet sounded fantastic set against Ives and Cowell. As those two composers made music that had the voice of their country, so Dvořák’s piece is full of the inflection of his language and the colors of the Czech landscape. Though very different in style, the American and Czech composers spoke to each other through shared values (and the Quintet was contemporaneous to Ives’ pieces).
This was just a gorgeous performance. Kelley’s viola fit perfectly into the ensemble sound and added color and richness. Balances between the instruments were superb and produced a beautiful sound throughout. One anticipated the pleasure of every detail, the piquant dissonances in the theme in the opening movement, the dance rhythms in the second. The Larghetto was so fine that one regretted the arrival of the last measure. But that lead to an equally fine Finale—though that too meant the conclusion of this winning evening.
The Momenta Festival runs through October 24; Momenta plays Telemann, Eun Young Lee, Enescu, and Ives, 7 p.m., October 20 momentaquartet.com
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