Chanticleer/Shanghai String Quartet, San Francisco Conservatory of Music
By Allan Ulrich

Published: March 17 2008 17:03 | Last updated: March 17 2008 17:03

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2887b2a2-f441-11dc-aaad-0000779fd2ac.html

Musical anniversaries customarily generate much retrospective, self-congratulatory blather, but occasionally something noteworthy emerges amid the extinguishing of the birthday candles. San Francisco’s male a cappella ensemble is celebrating its 30th birthday, the New Jersey-based quartet is observing its 25th and they have marked the moment with a commission that plays to both their considerable strengths.

The linchpin of this unusual collaboration is the Chinese-born, Kansas-resident composer Chen Yi, whose From the Path of Beauty, unveiled last week in Chanticleer’s home city prior to a national tour, is an immeasurably more appealing work than its rather twee title might suggest. Cast in seven movements, the 40-minute song cycle finds its verbal and harmonic inspiration in the traditional Chinese arts. The movements bear allusions to the different dynasties that have comprised the history of Chen’s homeland and the gestures of Chinese opera and folk culture permeate this often exquisitely crafted work.

In their sole unaccompanied section and the four with strings, the 12 vocalists slide into pitches, declaim discrete syllables and animate a spare harmonic scheme. The strings favour dramatic glissandi, much decorative filigree and percussive thwacks that might have derived from an operatic epic. Chen lingers over a romantic string reverie before plunging us into a propulsive recreation of a boisterous village band, where a deft hand bridges a wide cultural chasm. The listener’s experience of the work is akin to unrolling an ancient Chinese scroll, savouring the wonders as they pass before you.

The all-20th-century programme can also be cherished for Chanticleer’s impeccable traversal of three early Ligeti works, composed in Hungarian during the Soviet occupation and remarkable for their spare harmonies, haunting sonic clusters, tiered dynamics and ironic ruefulness. Idegen földön (Far from Home), a three-part cri de coeur from an unwilling exile, is a wondrous discovery and the group’s ability to send it off floating in space enthralled this listener. Less successful is an unaccompanied arrangement of Ravel’s Soupir, where one misses the composer’s inimitable interweaving of sonorities. The Shanghai’s performance of the composer’s quartet restored the balance.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008