Ancora String Quartet

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Barry Lewis

Ancora String Quartet (from left): Benjamin Whitcomb, Robin Ryan, Wes Luke, Marika Fischer Hoyt.

press release: The ASQ closes our 17th season with a program featuring two works composed within a couple of decades of each other, yet in very different styles. Nielsen’s crowning string quartet is permeated by a quality one doesn’t usually associate with Denmark: irrepressible whimsy. The first movement seems at first glance to be a gentle waltz, but as the melody meanders its way through a series of harmonies that baffle analysis, it becomes clear that we’ve left Vienna far behind. The chorale-like second movement and bubbly third movement culminate in a frisky finale which, despite its short fugal section, defies gravitas. The light-hearted Nielsen serves as a perfect foil to the second work on our program which, while not exactly heavy, is much more densely constructed: Debussy’s iconic string quartet. This work brings us French Impressionism at its finest, with its modal harmonies, mesmerizing ostinatos inspired by Javanese music, and multiple strands of shimmering motifs woven together in the kaleidoscopic final movement.