Astralis Quartet presents concert “From the Diary of Anne Frank” in Calgary: Nov. 10

(Calgary) –  On Sunday, November 10, the Astralis Quartet will present a concert titled “From the Diary of Anne Frank” at the cSpace Marda Loop Studio Theatre in Calgary. The title is drawn from one of the three string quartets that will be performed that afternoon.  This quartet, by the Canadian composer and musicologist Brian Black, mourns the suffering of all victims of racism.  At this time, when so many countries, including Canada, are experiencing a resurgence of antisemitism and racism of all kinds, the tragic figure of Anne Frank stands as an eloquent voice for compassion and understanding.

The quartet begins with a lament for the viola depicting Anne’s yearning for spring while in hiding (“The sun is shining, the sky is deep blue, there’s a magnificent breeze, and I’m longing—really longing—for everything…I feel spring awakening. I feel it in my entire body and soul.”)  Here the music rises out of the darkness three times to increasingly agonized climaxes, the last of which is swept away by an aggressive fugue-like scherzo for the destructive forces surrounding the Frank family. The music then fades into a hollow chant conveying the echoing voices of the victims of the Holocaust, which still haunt the landscapes where they perished. This dirge in turn warms into a lullaby for Anne, wherein the most agonized ideas of the opening lament are recalled and washed clean of suffering. But the music subsequently spirals downwards to the yearning of its beginning, ending with a gesture of protest that is transformed into the quartet’s opening viola lament. Now what was originally associated with Anne conveys the grief of a survivor of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre over the slaughter of his family:  “How not to cry?  And when I think of them, it is as if I see them all, their faces and images going through my head. How can a man not burst into tears?” The music thus ends as it begins and could begin again creating an endless cycle of grief.

The Astralis Quartet is a relatively new string quartet based in Calgary. It includes three members of the Calgary Philharmonic: John Lowry, violinist, the Associate Concertmaster of the CPO; Edmund Chung, a member of the first violin section; and Marcin Swoboda, Assistant Principal Viola. The Quartet’s cellist, Andrea Case, is Artistic Director of the Kensington Sinfonia and on the faculty of MRU Conservatory. Together they share a passion for performing chamber music by living composers and are excited to present both classical and modern works to Alberta audiences. The two other string quartets they will be performing, Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet opus 20, no 2 in C major and R. Murray Schafer’s String Quartet no. 5 “Rosalind” are very beautiful and engaging pieces of music, particularly in a live performance.

Haydn was the most influential pioneer of the string quartet in its infancy and brought it to its full maturity in a brilliant series of quartets he wrote in the late 1760s and early 1770s, culminating in his six String Quartets, opus 20. The second quartet of this set is an absolute delight (and an inspiration for any budding composer in the audience). Here the ideal of string-quartet writing with its dialogue between all of the parts attains its perfection in the captivating exchanges between the instruments. This reaches its peak of complexity in the fourth and last movement, an exhilarating and witty “fugue with four subjects” as Haydn wrote at the top of the movement’s first page.

With the late R. Murray Schafer, we come to one of the most inventive and imaginative composers in Canadian music. Largely self-taught, he brought to his music a wide variety of influences and interests, from exotic languages, such as medieval German, through philosophy, literature, mythology and a keen interest in the environment of sound, reflected in his founding of the World Soundscape Project (now known as the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology) at Simon Fraser University. Over his career he produced thirteen string quartets, the last composed only six years before his death in 2021. The Fifth String Quartet, written for the Orford Quartet in 1989, draws from the ensemble a kaleidoscope of new sonorities and effects, including towards its end the sound of two crotales (small tuned cymbals) bowed by the cellist and violist, giving a silvery ethereal glow to the last moments of the music.

The concert by the Astralis Quartet “From the Diary of Anne Frank” will take place in Calgary on Sunday, November 10, at the cSpace Marda Loop Studio Theatre, 1721 – 29 Avenue SW at 3:00 PM with a pre-concert talk by Brian Black at 2:15 PM.  Tickets are $25, students $10. Email Astralis.cms@gmail.com

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