The Kronos Quartet performed at Dublin’s National Concert Hall, as part of their seasonal Five Decades 50th anniversary tour – a noteworthy milestone that also witnesses the retirement of their second violinist, John Sherba, and the violist, Hank Dutt. With a nostalgic touch, Gabriel Diaz and Ayane Kozasa are set to fill these vacancies. Known for their longevity, Sherba and Dutt have served in the quartet for 45 and 46 years each, which makes this a significant landmark in the Quartet’s legacy.
Unchanged, however, is the Quartet’s enthusiasm in lending their talents to diversify their scope beyond classical renditions and demonstrate a commitment to modernity. Adaptive and forward-thinking, Kronos Quartet seems to be evolving with developing sound management advancements to give a unique experience to their spectators. Their stage these days is larger and boa sts of acoustics that could easily absorb all four of them, multiple times over.
Paul Wiancko, the cellist who joined the Quartet last year has considerably changed the sound presentation of his instrument. Frequently, his cello resonates as a fusion of the classic cello and the double bass, or occasionally, as a blend of cello and bass guitar.
The Quartet tailors their performances to each location on the tour, marking a distinction in each concert. For instance, the Dublin performance started with a series of unique shorter renditions, followed by one longer piece. Highlights included Jlin’s rhythmically aggressive piece ‘Little Black Book’ and ‘Lunch in Chinatown’ from Terry Riley.
The array of issues discussed was diverse. Peni Candra Rini’s piece, Segara Gunung (Ocean-Mountain) explores ecological and climatic concerns in her home country, Indonesia. Additionally, the initial half of the performance’s longest piece, Zonely Hearts by Nicole Lizée, was inspired by Rod Serling’s television series, The Twilight Zone. This piece, according to Kronos’s leader, David Harrington, was so enjoyable to perform it is unimaginable.
The best of the shorter pieces for me, was unveiled in the latter half, Laurie Anderson’s almost silent but occasionally lush piece, Flow.
The concert’s primary work, Different Trains by Steve Reich, has its origins over twenty-five years ago. It represents the different trains of Reich’s childhood in America (born 1936) and the dissimilar rail travels experienced by Jews during the Second World War in Europe.
The artful coupling of the live quartet’s performance with pre-recorded string arrangements, train sounds from the ’30s and ’40s, and the voices of his former governess, a retired Pullman porter and Holocaust survivors make up the piece. It creatively combines live quartet and pre-recorded performances, integrating string music rhythmically reminiscent of train movements, train horn sounds and changes in tempo with the immediacy of film cuts that always captures listeners’ attention. This performance had an unusual feeling of vast space and calm time.
The first two encore pieces at the concert were unmistakably chosen as a nod to ongoing world events. This included a moving excerpt from Valentin Silvestrov, the Ukrainian composer’s Third String Quartet, alongside Tashweesh by the Palestinian group, Ramallah Underground.