Concert review: Attacca Quartet

Inspired by the seven movements of Beethoven’s String Quartet no.14, the ever-savvy Attacca Quartet created an unusual preface, with a montage of short works by Caroline Shaw, Paul Wiancko and Radiohead (2 + 2 = 5), with the first movement of Ravel’s classic quartet – all done without breaks to echo the attacca structure of the Beethoven.

With three Shaw excerpts as anchors, the results included Nathan Schram strumming his viola like a guitar, along with bounteous extended techniques. When the opening of Ravel’s quartet emerged, it was like a moth flickering in twilight.

After the interval, for a packed house at the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Beethoven finally arrived, approached with the same thoughtfulness as the group had shown assembling the first half of the programme. Lightness and clarity were paramount.

In the fifth movement, the sul ponticello passage was even more gorgeously strange than usual, and an impressive flourish near the end, followed by a pause, produced a smattering of premature applause. But the introspective final movement revealed the group’s masterplan, as Beethoven’s idiosyncratic writing harked back to the dialogue of the evening’s first half.

Given the enthusiastic audience response, an encore was in the offing. After confessing admiration for the Danish Quartet, the group launched into ‘Old Reinlender from Sønndala’, the Danes’ arrangement of a traditional Norwegian folk tune. The Attacca foursome gave it a swingy, blues-infused reading that made an ideal farewell.

BRUCE HODGES