TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/062689/06268900.069

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 6KB | 99 lines

MUSIC, Page 86

Fanatic Champions of the New

The Kronos Quartet has a mod look -- and a mod repertoire

By John Elson


    In photos they look like something the cat dragged in. The
rockabilly Stray Cats, that is. The solemn girl with the spiky aura
of bleached hair -- she's the lead singer, right? And the dude with
the shoulder-length curls -- for sure, he'd be at home pounding
away on a battery of Slingerlands.

    Guess again. The blond (Joan Jeanrenaud) is a cellist by craft,
and the longhair (Hank Dutt) plays, appropriately, the viola. Along
with violinists David Harrington and John Sherba, they form the
Kronos Quartet, the nation's most adventurous chamber-music
ensemble. No Haydn or Mozart for this earnest foursome. Works by
Charles Ives and Anton Webern are probably the creakiest items in
their wide, of-today repertoire. It ranges from Steve Reich's
Different Trains, in which synthesized voices, recorded railroad
sounds and minimalist arpeggios are combined in a haunting memoir,
to a growling, down-and-dirty setting of Jimi Hendrix's Purple
Haze.

    At a time when chamber music seems to be enjoying something of
a boom, the Kronos following rivals that of a rock band. The
quartet gives more than 100 concerts annually, to largely young,
near sellout crowds, and all three of its albums (Electra/Nonesuch)
have made Billboard's classical charts. In addition, a March
released recording of Reich's music, which includes Different
Trains, is also on the charts.

    Part of the Kronos allure is that the group spices up
technically assured string playing with slick show-biz trappings.
The four frequently perform in color-coordinated outfits, and their
concerts are often akin to performance art. Beyond that, the Kronos
is a resolute, almost fanatic champion of new music. It has given
world premieres of more than 200 works, including five so far this
year. "When people come to a Kronos concert," says Jeanrenaud,
"they know they will hear something that requires a reaction, even
if they don't like what they are hearing. You can't just sit back
and relax."

    As evidence, consider the Kronos concert at Manhattan's Alice
Tully Hall last month. It was a multimedia program, arranged by
the avant-garde Italian stage designer Alessandro Moruzzi, titled
"Assembly Required." Dressed in unisex costumes of jet-black shirts
and slacks, the four musicians walked onto a stage jumbled with
speakers, tape equipment and an assortment of lights and mechanical
gears. Before each of the scheduled four works, played without
intermission, the Kronos members, in stately, choreographed
movements, placed the lights and objects to cast different shadow
forms on four screens set up behind their chairs. The program
typically offered two New York premieres. In John Geist's edgy Fall
from Grace, Kronos played live against the background of a tape of
18 string quartets prerecorded by the group. In Steven Mackey's
Among the Vanishing, a setting of texts by poet Rainer Maria Rilke,
the performers were joined by soprano Dawn Upshaw.

    Named for the bad-tempered Titan of Greek mythology who was
overthrown by his wily son Zeus, Kronos was founded by Harrington
in Seattle 16 years ago. In 1977, after an uncertain era of
itinerancy, the quartet moved to San Francisco, where two of the
original members quit just before Kronos was to embark on a
make-or-break subscription series. Following several frantic
tryouts, Harrington and Dutt hired Sherba and Dutt's friend
Jeanrenaud, who flew in from music school in Switzerland,
sight-read a Bartok quartet and an original composition and got
hired on the spot.

    Kronos is novel in more than repertoire: it is a self-managed,
nonprofit organization, whose members (aided by a small staff)
divvy up some chores normally handled by nonperforming
professionals. Jeanrenaud, for example, is responsible for the
group's post-Mod Squad costumes. As primus inter pares, Harrington
is the principal talent scout, sounding out composers who might
create scores for the group. Such is the quartet's reputation as
exponents of novelty, however, that hundreds of musicians volunteer
works.

    The quartet members insist they like what they play, although
much of it is aridly inaccessible to untrained ears. (One lyrical
exception: Samuel Barber's 1936 Adagio, memorably used in an
orchestral version as the theme music for the Oscar-winning film
Platoon.) Offstage, the four admit to musical tastes typically of
thirtysomethings: the Beatles, blues, jazz. They have performed in
concert with drummer Max Roach, and one popular encore is a setting
of Thelonious Monk's 'Round Midnight.

    Harrington argues that for Kronos, playing the classics is a
waste of creativity, since so much vital new music is available to
the quartet. "Any composer will tell you that the quartet is one
of the most revealing musical forms," he says. Among the group's
projected revelations: a recording of the 2-hour 10-minute Salome
-- Dances for Peace, commissioned from a favorite Kronos composer,
Terry Riley, and a video whose contents are still being discussed.
As a musical democracy, the members must all approve a commission
before it is accepted, and they resolve questions about
interpretation at amicable, give-and-take rehearsals. Their concert
programs carry a warning: contents subject to change. Why so? "We
might," explains Harrington, "suddenly come across the most
exciting thing we've ever played."