Parker Quartet Unlocks Multiple Moods

About halfway through the second movement of Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 15 in G Major, D. 887, the Parker Quartet seemed to make time stop, playing within a quivering freeze-frame and letting sound mesmerize the audience in Paine Hall last Friday.

The Parker Quartet, a string ensemble, did, in fact, move during the piece—indeed, with enough force to strip several hairs from their bows—but they cast a stillness over the audience that allowed them to unlock a multitude of moods within each note. The members of the quartet, founded in 2002 in Boston, teach in the Music Department, offer workshops around the University, and perform undergraduate and graduate compositions as part of the Blodgett Artist-in-Residence Program. Taken together, their renditions of Schubert’s quartet and the more contemporary String Quartet No. 2 in C Major, Op. 36 by English composer Benjamin Britten enabled the players to showcase an array of talents, from their intimate individual playing styles to the unity of the group.

The Parker Quartet’s rendition of the Schubert piece was striking because of their ability not only to evoke the magisterial quality of the piece with impeccable technique, but also to heighten the intimacy, the inner vibrations, of each note. Through the music, the group transported the audience—clad on this dreary evening in a mix of silk scarves, chunky knits, and rain-dampened blazers—to the springtime open-air parlors of Romantic-era European drawing rooms. The breezy flirtations between the violins (Daniel Chong and Ying Xue) and the viola (Jessica Bodner) were ensnared by the cello’s (Kee-Hyun Kim, an especially emotive player) subtler moody tangles. Taken together, the back-and-forth musings of the instruments fluctuated between private parlor room conversations and a more triumphal, presentational mode. But the musicians went beyond beautiful playing, especially in the third movement, retreating with a soft, plucky patter before mounting a grand allegro.

If the second piece, the Schubert, resounded with personal confidences expressed quietly beneath Romantic splendour, the first piece, the Britten, made an impact with its popcorn-style, in-tempo/out-of-tempo playing. In the first movement, the quartet hit all of the staccato beats while retaining the smoothness of each note. The last notes exemplified the piece’s oscillation between a jumping playfulness and a softer side, which together created a come-follow-me beckoning to the next section of the piece. That next movement, a chase-like call and response, seemed better suited to the dark depths of an Artemisian forest than to a concert hall. During one section, the players tossed the beat from one instrument to the next, each musician picking up where the previous one left off, until all the strings coalesced. Chong in particular during this section pushed his violin until the instrument buzzed like a bee and reverberated with harmonious intensity. And Kim on cello exuded so much emotion while playing that his shining brow and frequent deep breaths infused the lively music with even more vitality.

The stylistic variety of the Britten piece highlighted the best of what the quartet performed—their remarkable ability to construct and break down different emotions and personalities within the same piece. The musicians, each a master of his or her own instrument, both played intimately for themselves and communicated deep feelings when they played together.