Concert review: Catalyst Quartet, Kim Kashkashian (viola) Marcy Rosen (cello)

Sometimes smaller moments in concerts have outsized impact, and in this imaginative afternoon with the Catalyst Quartet, presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the prize went to composer Tōru Takemitsu. I would bet good money that most in the audience – even those familiar with the composer – had no idea he created a string quartet arrangement of Joseph Kosma’s 1945 classic song ‘Autumn Leaves’. Its tenderness made a poignant island in a programme of composers who had overcome obstacles; in Takemitsu’s case, as a teenager during the Second World War, he served in the Japanese military and witnessed trauma first-hand.

Surrounding it was a panoply of wildly different voices, from the giddy speed of Joseph Bologne’s String Quartet in D major op.1 no.6 to the suave, disorienting syncopations of Jorge Amado Molina’s 2016 Tríptico cubano. The ensemble paired the melismatic languor of Aftab Darvishi’s Daughters of Sol (2017) next to the spiritual glow of Madre la de los dos primores (1686) by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Florence Price’s Andante moderato, the sole surviving movement of a quartet.

After the interval, violist Kim Kashkashian and cellist Marcy Rosen joined the foursome for Korngold’s String Sextet, given a lean reading that emphasised the contrapuntal skill underpinning the lush textures. Though the finale, with its peppy nods to Neoclassicism, ended the afternoon on an ebullient note, the third-movement Intermezzo was the high point, with the sextet at its most beguiling.

Bruce Hodges