Shining Brightly: The American Daedalus Quartet in the Anthroposophic Center
Translated:
Kassel: It was the last concert of the chamber music society of Kassel and the first concert of the concert society of Kassel. The new organization, created from the Kammermusikverein, seeks to offer a stronger presence to the public and is planning a music festival for June 2009 in the documenta-Halle, in which we will also be able to experience such innovative projects as classical music performed to video clips. On Monday the Concert Society brought the brilliant American Daedalus Quartet to Kassel.
Works by Haydn, Stravinsky, the contemporary Scottish SoundEffect-Composer David Horne and Sibelius's D minor quartet "Voces intimae" were heard — and in the encores there was a fresh ragtime by jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.
The sister & brother team Kyu-Young Kim and Min-Young Kim, who traded positions for the first seat, the violist Jessica Thompson and the particularly impressive cellist Raman Ramakrishnan imparted tremendous energy to the fast movements, played with gripping accents, and structural clarity.
That's how bright the light seemed to shine on the music in the not entirely full south hall of the Anthroposophical Center. A very direct groundwork of sound dominated in all the dynamic nuances as a sum of acoustics and performance art. Particularly in the Adagio di molto of the Sibelius Quartet (taken at a fair clip) it would be possible to imagine an interpretation beyond the positivism favored today - an interpretation that points more to the mystical and the irrational.