Quite frankly Manchester did not know what it was about to miss. From the first note to the last, this performance was utterly spellbinding. The San Franciscan based quartet, comprised of David Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Duff on viola and Jennifer Culp on Cello, commanded their instruments, the stage and the crowd with unparalleled precision and excellence. The performers truly lived up to their international acclaim. The innovative artists played a diverse range of pieces that included compositions by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Clint Mansell and the renowned Steve Reich. Evic Taksim by Tanburi Cemil Bey was led by Hank Duff and offered the audience a moving piece that contained echoes of Tan Dun and filled the space with a mournful minor chord. The groups’ performance of Flugufrelsarinn (The Fly Freer) by the Icelandic group Sigur Rós (arr. Stephen Prutsman) was a yearning romantic composition that featured a captivating, expressive cello line. The concert also feature two commission pieces by young composers. The first of these was Felipe Pérez Santiago’s CampoSanto (Holy Ground) that flooded the audience with engulfing waves of sound, navigating seamlessly amongst genres, tones and time scales. The second commission piece was by Alexandra du Bois, called Oculus pro Oculo Totum Orbem Terrae Caecat (An Eye For An Eye Makes The Whole World Blind). This was a stunning piece that explored the landscape of war and conflict with a sorrowful tone of foreboding, chaos and devastation. The concert continued in a political vein with the quartet’s first encore; a twisted frenetic performance of The Star Spangled Banner in response to Dubya’s inauguration. The lighting cast the players’ shadows across the walls, looming large over the audience, as, with echoes of Jimi Hendrix, they performed a classical deconstruction of the American anthem. Kronos closed with a seductive piece Tonight is the Night. It was, quite simply, a remarkable evening of faultless, innovative music. The Kronos Quartet is contemporary classical music at its very, very best. |
