Miro Quartet Performs at The Crypt

Death of Classical Presents Home

By: Susan Hall - May 07, 2024

 

The Miro Quartet performed works centered around the theme of “Home” for the Death of Classical series in New York.  In the crypt of a church in Harlem, reverberating in the acoustics of its stone arches, the Quartet sang. This program felt like a homecoming, immediate and warm.  

Kein Puts’ three-part string quartet, Home, set the mood.  

Puts is a favorite of the group and often commissioned.  Home shows why.  He has a particular  touch for each of the string instruments, and combines seemingly simple melodic lines with com he takes home as we are forced out by violence and wars. Here the music is' ‘dangerously  rapid” and often cacophonous.  Peeking through are very brief moments of beauty, suggesting a possibly happy arrival at the end.  Yes, we come back to home.  Yet it is a new home. 

George Walker, whose work was consigned to Black History Month for years, emerges as the glory that it has always been.  Rhythms of the fourth movement of his first Quartet rollicked off the stone walls, setting the underground cave in motion.  The endless melodic line was played from start to finish. Walked studied with Samuel Barber whose Adagio from the string quartet in B minor provided a central position in the program.  This work is played at funerals (JFK) but here it felt warm and embracing, a quality emerging from the group.  

Caroline Shaw is another frequent collaborator.  Her Microfictions were interspersed with readings, charming and funny.  The group naturally brings a smile to listeners, teasing an introduction to their surprise encore.  Buy their album to hear the surprise. It will surely delight, displaying humor as well as deep musical knowledge rising from the heart.  

Home CD available here.