Aizuri Quartet: Earthdrawn Skies
Azica Records
Aizuri Quartet's second album arrives at a time of profound transformation: with violist Ayane Kozasa and cellist Karen Ouzounian leaving the group to pursue other creative interests, violinists Emma Frucht and Miho Saegusa will retain the Aizuri name and choose replacements for their departing colleagues. While the group only issued two albums in its originating form, the four played together for eleven years and forged a deep rapport. Recorded at Goshen College's Sauder Concert Hall in Indiana in February 2022, Earthdrawn Skies is thus the final statement by the four and all the more valuable for being so.
The programme they assembled is unusual. What, one reasonably asks, could pieces by British-Jamaican composer Eleanor Alberga, Finnish great Jean Sibelius, Armenian ethnomusicologist Komitas Vardapet, and Hildegard von Bingen possibly have in common? Not a whole lot, stylistically speaking—which doesn't make the recording any less satisfying—though Ouzounian does propose a thematic connection in characterizing each work as “rooted in a sense of tradition and connection to the land, even as the composers seek something beyond their reach: an understanding of God, the physics of the cosmos, homeland, happiness.” Of course the argument could be made that every artistic creation in some way grapples with ideas of humanity, nature, and the cosmos, which makes the thread connecting the Aizuri works seem even thinner.
No matter: two things in particular recommend the sixty-eight-minute release, its imaginative set-list and its performances, which are zestful, emotionally engaged, and technically proficient. The decision to include material by Alberga, Vardapet and von Bingen was inspired, and it's refreshing too to hear a Sibelius piece less commonly tackled than his violin concerto and symphonies. As far as the performances are concerned, they speak for themselves and help explain why the quartet's 2018 Grammy-nominated debut Blueprinting received the attention and acclaim it did.
Inaugurating the release is a beautiful rendering of von Bingen's Medieval chant Columba aspexit, adapted for string quartet in an arrangement by Alex Fortes. The material entrances in its humble supplications but proves even more stirring when delivered in progressive solo, duet, trio, and full-group expressions that advance from a single-voiced hush to quartet statement. Alberga's three-part String Quartet No. 1 endears on paper for its movement markings alone, the opening “Détaché et martellato e zehr lebhaft und swing it man” the cheekiest of the three. And swing it does, the material a whirling dervish of jagged patterns, keening harmonic gestures, and driving rhythms. Tender, yet also packed with contemplative wonder, is the elegiac central movement, while the third reinstates the tone of the first with savage, folk-tinged flurries. Particularly ear-catching is the pizzicato episode that emerges as the work nears its end.
The other two works hold special meaning for two Aizuri members. Vardapet's Armenian Folk Songs (in an arrangement by Sergei Aslamazian) speaks to Ouzounian's experience as a Toronto-born person whose family survived the early twentieth-century Armenian Genocide and came to Canada in the ‘80s during the Lebanese Civil War. Five songs are presented, each instantly beguiling with its folk character and melodies—from the celebratory thrust of “Haprpan” and sinuous grace of “Shoushigi” to the devilish gyrations of “Echmiadzni Bar” and sing-song charm of “Kaqavik.” Sibelius's String Quartet in D Minor Op. 56, Voces Intimae, on the other hand, carries special resonance for Kozasa, who moved to the United States from Japan as a child and struggled as many immigrants do with fitting in. That's because the Finnish composer wrote the material during a period of self-exile as he struggled to wrest free of an alcohol problem and contended with feelings of homesickness during the ordeal. Mournful and solemn at the outset, the work displays all the customary refinement we associate with Sibelius as it works through five movements. Whereas the brisk second and fifth movements showcase the group's remarkable facility, the poignant slow movement captures its capacity for expressing emotional sensitivity and nuance.
On one level, Earthdrawn Skies is bittersweet for being the final statement from the Aizuri Quartet in its originating form. That's accentuated even more by the fact that with the members having played together for over a decade the connection they've developed will be tough for the next iteration to equal. But with Frucht and Saegusa at the helm, the next version of the group will no doubt be an exciting new incarnation that's as innovative and forward-thinking in its approach. It'll be interesting to see where the group goes next.August 2023