Markus Reuter: String Quartet No.1 ‘Heartland'
Solaire Records

If Markus Reuter's first string quartet were included among its selections, a blindfold test taken by a classical music devotee would no doubt prove fascinating. One pictures the listener struggling to identify the composer and perhaps proposing any number of familiar names as possibilities, all to no avail. The reasons why such a scenario would play out in this way are easy to explain: Reuter (b. 1972) comes to string quartet writing from a different angle, one that naturally has much to do with his background as a progressive rock musician and member of Stick Men, centrozoon, and The Crimson ProjeKCt, and consequently his compositional approach doesn't adhere to the established norms of classical string quartet writing. Secondly, as somewhat of an outsider, Reuter's personal style would be less recognizable to someone steeped in the classical music tradition. None of which makes Heartland any less appealing, incidentally, as an addition to the string quartet repertoire; in fact, Reuter's unusual compositional approach has the ultimate effect of adding to the recording's appeal rather than diminishing it.

He approaches the compositional process with an open mind and has incorporated aspects of process music (involving rules-based algorithmic techniques) and generative music into his writing. Some of those techniques were drawn upon for Heartland, the algorithmical approach in particular (in the booklet, Reuter notes that the piece was composed using computer software, an approach that lends itself naturally to the application of algorithmic and process-oriented techniques). Even its structure is unusual: nine movements, all of them titled enigmatically, though Reuter does offer clarifications for the choices in liner notes.

Heartland isn't his first foray into the classical world, by the way. He received considerable acclaim for his large-scale orchestral work Todmorden 513, recordings of which were issued by Reuter in a small ensemble version in 2011 and as studio and live performances by the Colorado Chamber Orchestra in 2014 and 2016. Yet though Reuter attracted attention as a contemporary classical music talent with that work, he'd made a name for himself long before in progressive rock circles. He played the Chapman Stick for a period in the ‘90s before developing his own self-designed eight- and ten-string Touch Guitars, and for much of the ‘90s, he also attended courses in Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft.

In an essay by Tobias Fischer in the release's booklet, Paul Hindemith and Mike Oldfield are cited as key figures in Reuter's “musical genealogy”; we also learn that by way of preparation for the writing of a string quartet, Reuter spent months listening to and reviewing those of other composers. Reuter ultimately decided, however, to go his own way, and, with input from Oval's Markus Popp, developed the work's content using a number of so-called “self-referential musical fractals,” units that when combined into layered structures establish meaningful connections to the parts preceding and following them. Recorded over two days in October 2018 in Berlin, Heartland is treated to a stellar reading by the Matangi Quartet (violinists Maria-Paula Majoor and Daniel Torrico Menacho, violist Karsten Kleijer, cellist Arno van der Vuurst).

“Boon” charges from the gate with an aggressive, staccato-accented rhythmic motif the Matangi members execute with conviction. A slower melodic line glides across that insistent underpinning until the rhythmic motif briefly disappears, ceding the stage to glissando effects before reappearing to reinstate the driving urgency of the movement. Its title inspired by a line in Scarlett Thomas's book Our Tragic Universe, “X has Taken a Shine to You” eschews the drive of the opening part for a peaceful, meditative presentation, the focus now on pitches, open spaces, and a floating kind of rhythm. Subtle hints of dissonance surface during this movement, but for the most part the material provides a relaxing counterpoint to the frenzy of the opening. The movements that follow demonstrate how wide a range Reuter covers: five concise sections compose the fourth movement, “Dwell on a Star,” with a fanfare of sorts at the outset and a swinging, 7/8 dance-styled section appearing thereafter; “Netcong 63,” on the other hand, exudes a rather Bartok-ian air, especially when a dark undercurrent flows through the movement, while “The Magic Universe” ends the work with nine minutes of melancholic sadness.

Each of the movements seemingly poses a particular problem and Reuter's solution to it; in “The Tragic Universe,” for instance, “two opposing intervallic relationships” (his words) are explored, whereas the concept of the ‘magic square' (well-known for a structural design that sees all the numbers adding up to the same sum) was used as the basis for the musical material in “Zauberberg.” As a title, the latter has been used by Thomas Mann (for his 1924 masterwork The Magic Mountain) and Wolfgang Voigt (issued in 1997, it's the second album in his Gas project), though there's no obvious connection from Heartland to either. Regardless, “Zauberberg,” deemed the work's centerpiece by the composer, proves to be the most entrancing movement of its nine when minute melodic fragments are repeatedly into an hypnotic rhythm machine for ten-plus minutes.

Each part works effectively as a self-contained standalone, yet the movements are as effective when presented in sequence and experienced as a whole. No doubt Reuter's sensibility is one of the reasons why the parts, no matter how different, create the impression of a cohesive entity. It bears worth mentioning that he, like others before him, benefits considerably from the deluxe presentation his work has been given by Solaire Records. The CD edition comes in a sturdy slipcase and includes a forty-four-page booklet featuring texts (an intro by bassist Tony Levin, notes by Reuter himself, and articles by Frank Schätzing and Tobias Fischer) plus photos (download and double-vinyl versions of the release are also available). Fischer's contention that “Markus has developed a distinct personal language and a compositional system that yields astoundingly original results” is certainly borne out by Reuter's arresting composition and the Matangi Quartet's exemplary realization of it.

May 2019