A Late Quartet.

When I was training youth leaders I might have used The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape or The Commitments to illustrate some aspects of Group Dynamics.     But I cannot think of a movie that examines a group that has been together for over 25 years – until now.   Yaron Zilberman’s 2012 A Late Quartet could well do that. 

The title is ambiguous.   It could refer to a piece of music, specifically one of  the string quartets composed late in Ludwig Beethoven’s career;  Number 14, Opus 131.    Or to the fictional world renowned Fugue String Quartet we see preparing to perform it, again.    This group may become a ‘late’ Quartet as internal differences threaten to rip it apart.

The four musicians are a married couple, Juliette (viola) and Robert (2^nd violin), played by  Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman,  Daniel, the group’s 1st violinist and Leader (Mark Ivanir) and the cellist Peter (Christopher Walken) who was once their professor, but who tells the group early in the film that he is developing Parkinson’s Disease and will soon have to retire.   The question is, will his retirement mean the end of the Fugue’s existence together?     It certainly releases powerful reactions and buried passions.

This particular piece of music is unique.  Not only is it considered to be the Beethoven’s finest quartet, indeed perhaps the finest ever composed by anyone, but it has seven movements as opposed to the usual five, and Beethoven expected them to be played ‘attacca’ – without pause.   This puts considerable strain on the musicians, not least because during the forty minutes it may take to play the piece the instruments may well go out of tune.    The musicians have to listen hard to each other and adapt their technique to compensate.  This alone could be a suitable metaphor for the life of a group, but there is so much more.   Let me be clear, this film is not programmed to illustrate a theory,  it is a human drama about people who happen to be musicians,  and how their ambitions, expectations, desires and frustrations affect the group they belong to.    But the metaphor is obviously intentional and well worked.    

The four actors work wonderfully together and give the impression – certainly to a non-musician such as  myself – that they are actually playing the music.  In fact it is played by the world famous Brentano String Quartet.     Christopher Walken gently underplays his part as the ‘father’ of the group,  quietly courageous  enough to face his increasing debility, wise and humble enough to plan his future – and that of the group – after his inevitable retirement.     Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman sink into their roles, veteran performers as they are – or sadly in Hoffman’s case, were.    I had not noticed Mark Ivanir before, but he has been a very busy actor for some time with minor parts in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Good Shepherd, Johnny English Reborn and many TV and video game roles.   Here he playing with the heavyweights and he holds his own.   The young English actress Imogen Poots here tackles her first really major role,  playing Juliette and Robert’s daughter Alexandra.   

I was moved and educated by this movie, not only by its dramatization of human nature and group dynamics, but by the insights into the music and the demands of quartet playing it provided.     I have bought the Brentano recording to add to my Beethoven collection and strongly recommend the CD and the DVD.

Ye that have ears to hear...

One benefit  of having moved to a new county is that I listen to new radio stations and therefore hear new music.   Moving to Ireland is especially good for this, with RTE Radio Lyric fm providing the most wide ranging and informed play-lists I have ever heard. 

So, just in case you haven’t come across any of the artists/albums that I have really enjoyed in the last few years, many of them from late night listening to In The Blue of The Night, 10 pm – 1 am on Lyric, here are some of them, from different genres, plus a couple from movies I have seen.

 Susanna Wallumrod is a Swedish singer who ranges from the classical to the experimental, an intelligent interpreter of songs by (among others) Leonard Cohen,  Dolly Parton, Phil Lynott, Sandy Denny,  Prince,  Roy Harper and Purcell,  always providing fresh readings.  I started with ‘If Grief Could Wait’ (ECM) and moved on.

 Susanna’s keyboard player is often Morten Qvenild, and he provides piano backing for another Swedish singer,  Solvieg Slettahjell, whose interpretation of The Stone’s Wild Horses is a revelation.  Solvieg also sings Cohen songs, and Cindy Lauper’s True Colors.  I don’t rank her as highly as Susanna, but you might.  Try her Antologie album.

 I have known the music of Barb Jungr or some time,  and she is one of the few whose interpretations of Bob Dylan I enjoy.  None can match Nina Simone’s for me, but, Jungr’s  Hard Rain; the Songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen is highly recommended. 

 Two more albums of interpretations (I will not call them ‘covers’, they do so much more than that) come from Herbie Hancock.  On  Rive, the Joni letters, (Verve)  he works with Wayne Shorter and Dave Holland on instrumentals,  while singers such as Corrine Bailey Rae, Norah Jones, Tina Turner and Leonard Cohen tackle Joni’s lyrics.   Joni herself re-records Tea Leaf Prophecy.

 On Possibilities (HEAR) he invited singers/musicians such as  Santana, Paul Simon, Annie Lennox, Sting, Damien Rice and Lisa Hannington to explore some of their own, and others, songs.    In case you are wondering there are no Dylan or Cohen songs here!)

I am ashamed to say that I had never come across Chris Wood until I heard him on Lyric.  I wonder how often he has been played one a BBC station?   His brand of contemporary English folk is properly political.  On handmade life (RUF)  his Hollow Point is a chilling and powerful retelling of the tragic death of Jean Charles Menezes, the Brazilian plumber mistaken for a terrorist and shot in London by the Police in 2005.    The Grand Correction rages against the 30 year plus heritage of Thatcherism, making the poorest in the land slaves to the market, and giving the (increasingly even more) rich the excuse that the marker rules.   But he also sings tender love songs – as if his political anger was not rooted in the aspect of love we call compassion.   Chris is also part of The Imagined Village.  

 Jazz often features on Lyric  and that’s where I heard from Chick Corea’s collaboration Duet recorded with the young Japanese pianist Hiromi on the Stretch label, and Hot House, his album with Gary Burton on Concord.    Just before he died in 1977 Paul Desmond laid down four tracks with Chet Baker.  Together gives us these, plus three earlier collaborations, and is a gem.    For those who love either jazzmeister this is a joy,  the only sadness being that it was made so late in Paul’s life Thanks again, Lyric, for bringing it to my attention. 

 Lastly, for your delectation,  two Middle Eastern singers I came across at the movies.    In American Hustle Mayssa Haraa gave us a rendering of Grace Slick’s White Rabbit - in Lebanese.     Haraa is much valued as an interpreter of the poems of the Sufi mystic  Rumi, but I have not found any of these on record.    The soundtrack of American Hustle is brilliant anyway.   Jim Jarmusch’s film Only Lovers Left Alive also used a Middle Eastern voice, that of the Turkish Yasmine Hamdan.   Her album Ya Nass (Oh people) shows her powerful blend of jazz tinged folk. 

 Even if only one album or artist mentioned above brings you new joy I will be delighted.   I do not make space for comments on this Blog, but do have a Facebook page, (Robert Leslie Vernon), where feedback is wel