Grand Canyon Music Festival: Strings and Piano

The 41st season of the Grand Canyon Music Festival saw the return of Karlos Rodriguez of the Catalyst String Quartet, who played on programs with this year’s string quartet of Grant Houston, Bengisu Gokce, Jay Julio, and Nicholas Johnson.

On this broadcast the quartet begins with a movement by Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. His Quartetto Concertans No.5 starts with a bracing Allegro Assai that demonstrates contemporary musical fashions in Paris in 1777, light in mood and straightforward.

Rodriguez takes up a version crafted after cellist Pablo Casals of the El cant dels ocells (Song of the Birds), which once had a Christmas connotation but became a symbol of the arranger’s resistance to the dictatorial regime of Francisco Franco in Spain. Its melancholy reflects Casals’ vow not to play again in his own country under such a yoke, a promise he had to keep for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile Georges Enesco lead a double existence in France and his native Romania, where he is still revered as possibly the greatest Romanian classical musician. His diverse talents and approach to composition both reflect his genius and prevent easy summary. Pianist Silvan Negruțiu plays two miniatures of Enesco with a theme of bells: a sarabande from the Suite No.2, Op.10 of 1903 and the Carillon nocturne of the Suite No.3, Op.18 assembled from 1913-16.

Michael Begay is a stalwart of the Grand Canyon Music Festival, having been a part of the Native American Composer Apprentice Project since its early days first as a student and then teacher. His Four Coyotes uses specialized string techniques in a quartet performance of this very recent work.

The quartet finishes the program with Libby Larsen’s String Quartet No.4 (Emergence). It stems from her deep resonance with nature at large and especially that of her Minnesota home full of lakes. Having met with a particularly inspiring Utah musician who kindled Larsen’s faith in music to effect larger change, the composer has a specific message in this quartet. The five movements are associated with states of mind induced by humans’ responsibility for environmental transformation: radiant, reactive, rage, resolve and reverence. However, Larsen also identifies them more generally with stages of the meteorological water cycle: precipitation, run off, evaporation, transpiration, and condensation.