Carnegie Hall Hosts Rock Stars with Bows

Every now and again, a concert comes along in which the music is so different that the audience doesn’t quite know what to make of it. If it’s good, it’s a special occasion for both the musician and the listener. This was the case for the groundbreaking Kronos Quartet (most famously heard on the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack).

The group was founded 31 years ago by first violin David Harrington, who had a view, as he put it, of “bringing as much of this world as possible into this medium [the quartet].” For them, every concert is as innovative, and yet, with good reason the audience of Carnegie’s Zankel Hall on Feb. 5 clapped like windup-monkeys with cymbals—like they knew how to do nothing else. Harrington, a tireless researcher of new music, says, “I just trust my instincts,” when being presented with something new.

This is not music to cure a headache or to put a baby to sleep, like Mozart or Brahms, but rock ‘n’ roll for the string quartet, complete with amplification, synthesizer effects, colored spotlights, and even recorded voices and strings over the four instrumentalists: violinists Harrington and John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt, and cellist Jennifer Culp. But the comparatively normal part of the program ended when, for an encore, the group played Jimi Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner.” And I’d forgotten my lighter.

The concert featured music written in the last four years and a lyric piece by Tamuri Cemil Bey from the late Ottoman Empire. Yet there was more to it than trailblazing and rule-breaking, The quartet found a balance between intellectual engagement, well-executed composition, and performance, particularly in the tone-poetry of Michael Gordon. For all of its electronic sound, it seemed to draw on the patterns and chord changes of a Bach prelude. The reveries of Felipe Pérez Santiago, with its cognitive dissonance achieved by combining live performance with recording, was similar in its innovative use of multimedia. I half-expected them to burn or trash their instruments.

Harrington explained, “When I was 12 ... I realized the only music I knew from the whole world was from Vienna and that seemed really absurd ... I like exploring and I have no desire to do what might be expected ... In the case of Tamuri Cemil Bey, I first heard it about six years ago, recorded by the composer ... on Edison Cylinders. It was so beautiful ... in that area [Turkey], Bey is considered like Bach. I thought wow, I’m really missing out.”

This creed has placed the quartet between the origins of written music and the 21st Century. “A musical experience connects [you] to music you’ve already heard,” Harrison said. “The connections to outward events come from inward events ... Politicians have tried to control music; its power is recognized and this is partly because it is so personal and everyone can find his own meaning.”

Even if multimedia music is an oxymoron of sorts and recorded music in concert might feel a bit odd, it was still a jarring, fascinating, lovely evening. The Kronos Quartet comes around on tour frequently, and plays sold-out gigs. If you manage to get tickets to their next show, bring an open mind. And a Zippo.