The Indianapolis Quartet: Robert Paterson: String Quartets 1-3
American Modern Recordings

Probably no one else has created string quartets as irreverent as Robert Paterson's. Whereas others might treat the form with the utmost seriousness, the award-winning American composer brings a refreshing cheekiness to the endeavour—which isn't to suggest he isn't deadly serious about it too. Still, anyone inclined to give string quartet movements titles such as “Rigor Mortis,” “Twist and Shout,” and “Auction Chant” clearly possesses an unusual sensibility bent on offsetting drama with humour and wit. Such levity is welcome in a musical genre that's generally sober.

In the Indianapolis Quartet, he's found his perfect partners-in-crime for the world premiere recording of his first three string quartets. After the group premiered the third at Carnegie Hall in 2020, Paterson decided the time was ripe to formally document all of his music for string quartet to date. Interestingly, a wide gap separated the writing of the works, with the first appearing in 2000 and the others in 2019 and 2020. Whereas the second was composed for the Euclid Quartet, the third was commissioned by the Indianapolis Quartet. That the members of the latter, according to violinist Joana Genova, “laugh a lot when we work together” makes the outfit, completed by violinist Zachary DePue, violist Michael Isaac Strauss, and cellist Austin Huntington, a particularly good fit for the material. As she also notes, the quartet's propulsion, beauty, mood shifts, and, yes, humour are also emblematic of its character.

In keeping with Paterson's sensibility, all three works reference others, from a Grieg quote in the second to—wait for it—a reference to “The Love Boat” in the first. In like manner, connections are established between the first quartet's four movements by having elements of each one reemerge in the others. Whereas the excellence of the ensemble's playing is evident the moment “Fast and Sprightly” opens the work with kinetic thrust, ultra-precise execution, and high energy, the quartet's most ear-catching moment follows when “Logy” serves up a demented country waltz. In writing the material, Paterson envisioned his mother “interrupting ‘Three good ol' boys fiddlin' on a porch in Rabun Gap, GA,' quipping at them to stop”—an apt description for the off-kilter wonkiness presented. Rest assured you've never heard anything like it in a string quartet before. A certain tongue-in-cheekiness is evident in the title of the third movement, “Sad, Luscious Adagio,” though not so much that the solemn tone is subverted. Said quality carries over into the final part, “Energetic Polka,” which does open in quasi-polka-like manner but is more memorable for its aforementioned “Love Boat” reference and a dynamic closing section the composer calls “Hyperfast shimmy and shake.”

The wide range of inspirations continues in the second quartet, Paterson in this case basing movements around fine artists and “The Angriest Dog in the World,” a newspaper comic strip by David Lynch. Up first, “Colored Fields” uses microtonal modulations in pitch to suggest visual techniques deployed by Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Georges Seurat. The Lynch-related “Rigor Mortis” is dominated by razor-ship stabs and ferocious execution, the composer here attempting to evoke the strip's black dog with writing that's bluesy, vicious, and seething (yet also in one passage yearning). Similar to the first quartet, the second includes an adagio-styled movement, here the mournful “Dolente,” which incorporates thematic material from Grieg's String Quartet No. 1. Paterson draws further inspiration from a Norwegian folktale about the “fossegrim,” a male water spirit capable of teaching violin-playing but often at the cost of personal happiness. As expected, it's the musical characterization of the creature, marked by tremolos and dissonant harmonies, that's the movement's most striking aspect. The subsequent “Scherzando” works a stumbling smidgen or two of “God Save the Queen” into its drunken sway, after which “Collage” revisits themes from the first four movements to propel this adventurous work to an effervescent end.

Voices of various kinds are the animating impetus for Paterson's third quartet, with “Twist and Shout” not an anticipated Fab Four reference but rather a movement featuring broken musical patterns and jagged rhythms redolent of stuttering or Tourette's Syndrome vocalizations. “Poet Voice” naturally roots itself in the style of poetic recitation, with the composer using a video of Louise Glück reading “The Wild Iris” and specifically her speech delivery and the poem content as guidelines for the musical design. In contrast to the understated eloquence of that movement, the country fiddle-driven “Auction Chant” gallops at a hellacious pace befitting North American auctioneers. In one final audacious gesture, “Anthem” caps the work with a patriotic-sounding movement woven from snippets of sports themes and state songs used to pump up fans at sporting events.

September 2022