The Hausmann Quartet’s ‘Pal Blue Dot’ CD Welcomes the Brave New World of Contemporary String Quartet Repertory
Over the last eight years, San Diego’s Hausmann Quartet has made it’s mark on the local music scene with its quarterly concerts titled Haydn Voyages, an ambitious project designed to perform the entire canon of Franz Joseph Haydn’s string quartets. The audiences for these Haydn Voyages staged at the San Diego Maritime Museum have proved quite loyal, in part, I believe, because Hausmann balances each of these Sunday afternoon Haydn concerts with contemporary string quartets or quartets from the 20th Century.
(l. to r.) Alex Greenbaum, isaac Allen, Angela Choong & Bram Goldstein [Photo (c.) Sam Zauscher]
For the Hausmann Quartet’s first CD titled Pale Blue Dot, the title of composer David Serkin Ludwig’s contribution to the disc, the ensemble of violinists Isaac Allen and Bram Goldstein, violist Angela Chong, and cellist Alex Greenbaum has collected five contemporary works they have performed in recent seasons.
Kerwin Young’s clever 2020 Peace of the Left—Justice on the Right opens the CD. A cheerful short etude built on insistent rhythmic motifs with a quotation from a Beethoven string quartet, Young has members of the quartet chant the title slogans several times throughout the piece. I have heard the piece in performance (May, 2021) and have listened to it several times on the CD. Is Young boldly professing his allegiance to social justice causes in his music, or is this a coy satire of easy armchair protests?
Pulitzer Prize Winning composer Caroline Shaw’s Valencia from 2012 is one of her more frequently performed works. Each short portion of this single movement work hums with subtle driving ostinatos and compact, sprightly tonal motifs. According to the composer, each section unfolds like the gentle separation of each section of a ripe orange. Hence the title.
Stephen Prutsman’s American Kaleidoscope attempts to connect the diverse snatches of music that might be picked up on a car radio over a cross country drive. In Hausmann’s live performance of September 18, 2018, I noted several familiar, easily recognized tunes, but because of copyright restrictions, the composer deleted these for this recorded version. So we hear a melange of different styles, e.g. a raucous hoedown, an R & B ballad, a whiff of jazz and other popular idioms. Some sections sound mysterious, others energetic or vaguely nostalgic. But with transitions that suggest the static of a radio station signal fading out of range, this is a string quartet better appreciated while watching musicians perform it than listening to it in your living room.
Passage Between Earth and Sky from 2022 is Jessica Meyer’s three-movement ode to a tree ruthlessly removed by the vigilant arm of an overly protective power company. Since the work is a quintet, Hausmann is joined by the composer on viola in this recording. Meyer’s first movement “Sown Seeds” offers a gentle arioso, with the upper strings suggesting wistful aspiration. The gossamer texture of “Zen Branches” floats tentative themes as the tree’s branches reach upward, while the violins’ twittering high figures imitate the birds perched on these branches. The cello unleashes anxious, ominous themes at the opening of “Dissevered—Reverie of Renewal” and is quickly joined by the rest of the quartet in a flurry of strident motifs that depict the tree’s brutal removal. In Meyer’s finale, however, the composer has the last word: a hopeful anthem of affirmation based on a gorgeous viola cantilena.
A ‘pale blue dot’ is how the earth appeared in an iconic photo taken by the Voyager space craft as it left our solar system. David Sorkin Ludwig’s eerie 17-minute Pale Blue Dot could easily serve as the score for a celestial journey in a science fiction film. Quiet clusters and mysterious, sinuous themes fill this sonic picture of a realm we can only imagine, but which Ludwig has suggested with visionary intuition.
Throughout this CD, the unfailing warmth and balance of the Hausmann Quartet’s sonority as well as their impeccable phrasing provide an inviting entry into the brave new world of contemporary string quartet composition.
Ken Herman, a classically trained pianist and organist, has covered music for the San Diego Union, the Los Angeles Times’ San Diego Edition, and for sandiego.com. He has won numerous awards, including first place for Live Performance and Opera Reviews in the 2017, the 2018, and the 2019 Excellence in Journalism Awards competition held by the San Diego Press Club. A Chicago native, he came to San Diego to pursue a graduate degree and stayed.Read more…