Copeland String Quartet with Janet Jackson Witman

Janet Jackson Witman, harpist, was guest artist at Sunday’s Copeland Quartet concert at the Church of the Holy City. Ms. Witman played Aria in classic style by Marcel Grandjany in a version for harp and string quartet. Grandjany, a French harpist who emigrated to North America, wrote this as a concert etude to show the exploits possible with arpeggios on a harp. Ms. Witman executed the arpeggios with clarity, dexterity and a lyrical but gentle sound that resounded in the small church. Since every pew was full, there was little reverberation, yet harp sounded quite clear even in the back pews.

The next piece Ms. Witman chose was a piece that the Pleyel company had commission of Claude Debussy, Danses pour harpe chromatique. As orchestral parts for the harp began to include more and more chromatic passages, Pleyel tried to develop a harp with two sets of strings so the harpist would not need so many pedal changes. Unfortunately, the harpe chromatique did not win over the world of harpists and, like Ms. Witman, they had to learn to make incredibly fast pedal changes rather than deal with so many strings.

The quartet had been more of an accompanying orchestra for the harp in the first two pieces, but the Beethoven ‘harp quartet’, (String quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, opus 74), showed us they were quite capable of taking on more prominent roles. The players gave each voice its own character in Beethoven’s very long coda at the end of the first movement, providing a harmonic balance and shaping each chord with great musical sensitivity. The adagio ma non troppo second movement was a vehicle to show all of the melodic nuances of each of the four instruments – with the presto demanding their precision and alternating and exchanging of melodic phrases with seamless timing and matching lines. For four musicians to trade off a phrase and have it sound as if one person planned the slurs, intonation and dynamics is quite a feat, but nothing compared to their brave finale at the end of the allegretto con variazioni.

They will be at the Church of the Holy Trinity on April 1 or you can hear them by buying one of their two CDs.

See www.copelandstringquartet.com

Copeland String Quartet and the Art of the Quartet

The Art of the Fugue has long been a challenge to keyboard artists, trying to play different voices in the fingers – but when the Copeland String Quartet plays it as a quartet – each voice takes on its own timbre and texture. Mark Ward had his colleagues play each theme and voice before they played eight of the twenty of the fugues Bach wrote in his Art of the Fugue.

The musical blend had the grace of four independent players – each trading the fugal voices, which wove a tapestry of sound throughout the stone church. The last fugue, as we had been warned, was not finished and they played it to the last notes Bach had written which inspired the audience to loud applause, a proper salute to Bach who was born 326 years ago this month.

The Schumann String Quartet in A major, Opus 41, No. 3 was a major scene change. Where Bach had created four independent voices for fugal polyphony, Robert Schumann was thinking in chordal harmony – making his quartet like his piano compositions. In the Andante espressivo, the first violin plays an A against the second violin’s held G – before the second moves to the A. Only professionals can tread this murky water and Eliezer Gutman and Tom Jackson had that harmonic tension and resolution beautifully controlled.

The quartet managed the Assai agitato with its many tempo, meter and mood changes without a hitch – communicating all of the dynamic and mood changes. You can feel that they have worked together long enough to sense each other’s tempi and expression.

The viola and first violin playing the melody over the ostinato of the second violin and the well-placed pizzicato of the cello were highlights in the Adagio molto and they took the Finale with no holes barred on speed – yet their ensemble was fluid as they built to a smooth and musical crescendo.

The quartet has two CDs out (see web site) and their next Holy City concert will be on May 22 at 4 p.m.

See www.copelandstringquartet.com.