Concert review: Jack Quartet

Over the span of almost a decade, composer Rand Steiger has written three works for the Jack Quartet using electronics, and for the latest Time:Spans Festival, the group gave the world premiere of the complete cycle, titled Introspective Trilogy.

For the first, titled ‘Undone’ (2016), the musicians were positioned on four sides of the audience: violinists Austin Wulliman and Christopher Otto in front and back, respectively, violist John Pickford Richards on the right and cellist Jay Campbell on the left. The acoustic in the subterranean Mary Flagler Cary Hall is near-ideal for works with electronics, with speakers interspersed around the audience for a genuine immersive experience.

If the composer’s intended geopolitical aims felt a bit elusive, there was no denying the powerful, even seductive, effects as the music radiated through the hall. For ‘Inward’ (2017), the players returned to a conventional seating up front; here, the mood was quieter, with long phrases showing the quartet’s ability to produce blocks of sustained tension.

‘Rage/Resolve’, completed in 2024 after pandemic delays, opened with a few seconds of silent bowing and fingering motions, soon followed by dense volleys of tremolos that grew in fury. The ‘resolve’ portion began with a limpid cello line, adorned by shimmering electronics. Echoes of the opening tremolos returned, quietly, as if to offer hope or consolation, but the initial agitation was never far away. It’s hard to imagine an ensemble unfurling a work like this with more authority.

Bruce Hodges