Ulysses Quartet: Shades of Romani Folklore
Navona Records
On Shades of Romani Folklore, the Ulysses Quartet (violinists Christina Bouey and Rhiannon Banerdt, violist Colin Brookes, and cellist Grace Ho) performs works by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Leoš Janácek (1854-1928), and Paul Frucht (b. 1989) that share a connection to Romani music. The term refers to the genre-transcending style of music performed, shaped, and nurtured by a once nomadic people whose origins lie in northern India but who are today largely settled in Europe. Elements of jazz, folk, and flamenco emerge in Romani music, as do echoes of Russian, Balkan, and Hungarian forms. While no one style predominates, the music is generally rhythmically charged and harmonically adventurous. Differences notwithstanding, Beethoven, Janácek, and Frucht all produced works that evoke the spirit of Romani music in compelling ways.
The performances are energized by the attentive playing of the award-winning Ulysses Quartet, which formed in 2015 and whose members hail from Canada, the United States, and Taiwan. Boasting degrees from the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, New England Conservatory, Boston Conservatory, and University of North Texas, the four bring rock-solid technique to every project they tackle, including the present one, recorded in January 2020 at Veronica Hagman Hall in Danbury, Connecticut.
It's easy enough to draw a connecting line from Romani music to Janácek when his writing often exhibits a folk character, but its connection to Beethoven is less evident—until, that is, one arrives at the Romani-flavoured final movement of his String Quartet No. 4 in C minor, Op. 18, No. 4. One of his early quartets, the work captivates the moment its opening “Allegro ma non tanto” sings its alluring song and the players deliver the material with exuberance and palpable delight. Whereas the lighthearted andante that follows sings even more sweetly, the brief “Menuetto: Allegretto” maintains the robust energy level of the work with insistent drive. As the effervescence of the culminating “Allegro – Prestissimo” shows, the quartet, written between 1798 and 1800, has lost none of its lustre in the time since it entered the world.
Originally from Danbury, American composer Paul Frucht has been a faculty member at New York University's Steinhardt School since 2015 and is a graduate of the Juilliard School and New York University. He's only in his mid-thirties yet has already created a large and impressive body of work, with one of his symphonic pieces, A More Perfect Union, noteworthy for incorporating six speeches by Barack Obama. It's the world premiere recording of Frucht's 2018 work Rhapsody, however, that's performed by the Ulysses Quartet, but it too is interesting for taking inspiration from Ravel's exotic Tzigane, which the French composer wrote for an Hungarian violin virtuoso. Using that piece as a springboard, Frucht has created an action-packed eleven-minute setting that ranges from contemplative romantic gestures and cheeky asides to blistering uptempo passages.
Whereas the Beethoven quartet is an early one by the composer, Janácek's second string quartet, Intimate Letters, is a mature work by the Czech artist. Its title originates from an intense relationship the composer had with the younger Kamila Stösslová, to whom he wrote hundreds of letters (hers destroyed at her request). Intimate Letters isn't programmatic, but the raw passion of the material and the quartet's expressive rendering suggest the relationship wasn't free of turbulence and torment. When a tender section emerges midway through the first movement, one can't help but think it's alluding to his feelings for Stösslová, and, at the risk of projecting too much, the yearning and intense desire expressed in the slow second movement suggests it might apply to their relationship too. Janácek's quartet progresses through a number of intimate and agitated episodes similar to the ups and downs experienced by romantic partners. Of the three works presented on the release, it's his that feels most overtly redolent of Romani music due to the prominent folk dimension (in the rousing “Allegro – Andante – Adagio” movement especially). Intimate Letters is also richly melodic, though the same could be said of the composer's work in general. All of the album's pieces are brought vividly to life by the Ulysses Quartet, which invests each spirited performance with conviction and consummate attention to detail.January 2024