Review by Paul M. Somers, Classical New Jersey

German Dada
Uninhibited playing

Sunday, March 26
By Paul M. Somers

The movement titles of the string quartet, even for those whose knowledge of German was sketchy at best, were redolent of Dada and Satie: (translated) “Army March 606, the Hohenfürstenberger”; The Two Merry Dirty Birds (for two piccolos); and “Overture to Water Poet and Bird Peasant.” When the string quartet came on stage, having left a few minutes before after playing Barber’s serious op. 11 quartet, they were dressed quite oddly. Wigs, including one which was a cone suggesting both Saturday Night Live cone heads and one of those Star Trek “races” differentiated from Earthlings only by having strange hair styles. Clothing was far from normal including strange glasses. At one point first violinist Isaac Allen fell off his chair quite spectacularly. Yes, this was Dada.

And, yes, it was Paul Hindemith — the composer of the ever-so-serious Mathis der Maler, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, and sonatas for every orchestral instrument plus some others. The work was Minimax, a work from his Berlin period, a time and place he shared with Kurt Weill (who was writing symphonies) and Arnold Schoenberg. In this case, think of Hindemith as a character in Cabaret.

Comedy is not easy to pull off, but the Hausmann Quartet (and Hindemith, of course) had the large audience in stitches. The music is a cross between Mozart’s “Musical Joke” and one of Ives’ pieces using multiple marches in multiple tempi at the same time. The viola “rushed”, “bad” entrances found the players “not together,” and the performance was riddled with “wrong notes.” The oddly costumed characters were by turns bemused and oblivious but always distinct, each operating with his or her own “logic.”

Even with a joyous and virtuosic performance of Schumann’s exuberant Piano Quintet as the second half of the concert, it was Minimax that caused the most conversation. The piece is devilishly difficult to play. The two violins playing the “piccolos” duet in harmonics was quite a remarkable feat in itself. Many parts of the piece require highly trained players to do things against their training. It often reminded me of a ballet requiring the dancers to turn in, not out.

Not only did the Hausmann Quartet play it brilliantly (it would have been funny just heard on CD), but they transported the concert far from the too often stuffy realm of chamber music. Their attitude was quite simply one of having fun, not at all self-conscious about the bizarre getups and pratfalls.

But behind the laughs, there was the ensemble’s clear message for a new day: have fun playing. Do the serious music of the standard repertoire of course! But take a page from Shakespeare, who understood that the death of Duncan and its discovery were best separated by the very funny banter between the porter and MacDuff. Both Barber’s and Schumann’s music profited greatly by the presence of Hindemith’s satiric work in between.

One can only hope that the Hausmann’s enthusiastic embrace of such a rarely played piece is a harbinger of a less consistently “hallowed” sensibility in the world of quartets. I wished I could witness their Beethoven C-sharp minor Quartet, for their passionate lack of inhibition (not to be mistaken for lack of taste) could make the manic Presto a piece akin to a “minimax” experience, for people who understand humor so well will know how to fit it into many contexts.

Barber’s Quartet showed itself once more as rightly having joined the standard literature for quartet. The Hausmann’s intensity was here directed toward creating a Bartókian aura. The famed Adagio was kept within the original bounds without four people trying to capture the sound of the full string section version so often (too often?) heard. Its plaintiveness and gradually rising emotion remained powerfully personal rather than expanded into the culturally iconic.

Two of the Hausmann members — violinist Bram Goldstein and cellist Yuan Zhang — joined the Lyrica regulars — violinist Laura Bossert, violist Paula Majerfeld, and pianist Mariel Bossert — in the Schumann Quintet. Here Zhang made sure to “cheat” toward the audience to bring out his big solos. Both Bosserts traversed the piece with the assurance of long familiarity, Yet at this outing there was a freshness, perhaps spurred on by the two young players, which produced even more depth and joy.