Jupiter and Jasper String Quartets: Mendelssohn / Visconti / Golijov
Marquis Classics

“It's a family affair,” sang Sly Stone fifty years ago, but the words could be applied as easily to this collaboration by the Jupiter and Jasper String Quartets. In addition to familial ties within Jupiter—the group comprises violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg's sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg's husband and Liz's brother-in-law)—are ones with Jasper, violinist J Freivogel being both younger brother to Meg and Liz and husband to cellist Rachel Henderson Freivogel (completing the unit are violinist Karen Kim and violist Sam Quintal). A more closely knit collective would be hard to imagine.

Rather than engaging in knives-out competition, the eight catalyze those close connections into music-making of an extraordinarily high order. Complementing a breezy performance of Felix Mendelssohn's Octet in E-flat, Op. 20 (1825) are readings of Osvaldo Golijov's Last Round (1996) and Dan Visconti's Eternal Breath (2011), the latter a family-related commission. Among other things, the recording is a celebration of family, friendship, and the fruits of collective labour, and both groups resoundingly benefit from the union.

Mendelssohn's four-movement work impresses for many reasons, its joyful effervescence and melodic richness for starters, but you might find yourself returning to one detail in particular as the thirty-two-minute piece plays: he was a mere sixteen years old when he wrote the material. He's hardly the only composer to have created material of sophistication at a young age, but the accomplishment is nonetheless staggering, and that the octet involves the intricate weaving together of eight voices, not four, makes it all the more amazing. If the opening allegro had been the only movement that survived, Mendelssohn's effort would still be remarkable. At fourteen minutes, the material covers a lot of ground during its energized ebb-and-flow, its travels spearheaded by an enticing rising motif Beethoven would have been proud to call his own. Whereas the tender “Andante” suggests a composer inordinately mature for his age, the “Scherzo” and “Presto” show he was as capable of creating zestful material as confidently.

Skip next to Golijov's Last Round for material as frothy, in this case a two-movement homage to Argentinean great Astor Piazzolla for which the quartets are joined by bassist Michael Cameron. Golijov conceived the piece with the bandoneón, Piazzolla's instrument, in mind and thus fashioned the first part to represent “violent compression of the instrument” and the second a “final, seemingly endless opening sigh.” With a title alluding to a Julio Cortázar story about boxing, “Last Round: Movido, urgente” is suitably aggressive, so much so the image readily comes to mind of combatants circling one another in the ring; “Muertes del Angel,” on the other hand, recalls Piazzolla's writing at its most lyrical and elegiac.

It's Visconti's Eternal Breath, however, that embodies the family theme most vividly, the work originating as a commission by the Freivogels' parents, Bill and Margie, on the occasion of their fortieth wedding anniversary. The two purposefully imagined a piece that would involve their children and was thus a natural vehicle for the two quartets to play together. Kim moves to shruti box for the performance, which leaves the strings to give voice to Visconti's concept. A ‘breathing' phrase is distributed in a manner symbolizing the breath of life passing from one generation to the next and through the expansion of family via marriage and partnership. Hushed, melismatic expressions by the strings gather to form a haunting atmospheric mass that entrances during the eleven-minute setting like a soft vocal cry.

February 2021