Big Apple band Brooklyn Rider show why they’re called rock stars of classical music

Brooklyn Rider, dubbed a rock star string quartet from the Big Apple, made their Sydney debut in Opera House’s intimate Utzon Room.

New York string quartet Brooklyn Rider performing in the Opera House's Utzon Room. Picture: Cassandra Hannagan

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New York is renowned for its excitement, bustle and energy – the city that never sleeps. And those characteristics are very much a part of Brooklyn Rider, an unconventional string quartet from the Big Apple who made their Sydney debut in the intimate Utzon Room at the Opera House with a concert that had something for everyone.

Formed in 2008, the group comprises violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, who switch the lead roles around, backed by violist Nicholas Cords and their newest member, cellist Michael Nicolas, who joined in 2016. They are known for their eclectic repertoire, mixing contemporary music of various genres, including classical, folk, bluegrass and hip-hop, with standards from the mainstream repertoire.

The program for their Australian debut tour, The Four Elements, is typical of their cutting edge output, featuring a quartet by Dmitri Shostakovich, a challenging work by French composer Henri Dutilleux, a piece by Argentinian Osvaldo Golijov – who lived a long time in Israel and whose music contains several Middle Eastern traits – and an original composition by violinist Jacobsen, A Short While to be Here.

It’s not just the classical elements of earth, air, fire and water that are at the heart of the recital, but also the vexing problem of climate change, “the single greatest challenge of our time”.

Jacobsen’s 13 minute piece got the ball rolling with an episodic journey through the American musical heartlands – Appalachian folk tunes driven by Nicolas’s bass riffs, irresistible bluegrass foot stompers from the South, and blues and roots music from Chicago. Sliding fiddle figures meandered between keys in one section, bringing to mind Dali’s melting clocks, and that gave way to a catchy ticking passage full of pauses and unexpected syncopations – perhaps a wry reminder that the planet’s climate clock is approaching midnight.

Brooklyn Rider played something for everyone in their Sydney debut. Picture: Cassandra Hannagan

Jacobsen led the quartet in Dutilleux’s extraordinary Ainsi la nuit – its seven parts traversing the night, space and constellations and culminating in a finale marked “suspended time”. If the vibrant rhythms of the first piece showed how Brooklyn Rider deserve their reputation as the “rock stars” of chamber music, this 18 minute quartet demonstrated their precision, attention to detail and beauty of tone.

Shostakovich’s eighth quartet, the best known of the 15 he wrote, was dedicated to the victims of Fascism and is his most personal work, built around his musical signature in German notation, D-S-C-H – the notes D, E flat, C and B natural. The Americans found more lyricism in the first movement than some ensembles I have heard, but they did produce the biting drive of the Jewish theme in the chilling second movement.

With Gandelsman leading, the transition that leads from the opening largo into the allegro molto was beautifully handled. The cello solo over the chorale of strings was truly a melting moment.

More gorgeous moments came in Golijov’s Tenebrae, a reference to the moment in a religious service where candles are gradually extinguished and darkness follows. Cords, introducing the work, described it as like heaven opening and beauty being shone down. It left the audience with a sense of awe, judging by the collective sigh that greeted its closing bars.

All in all this was a stunning launch of the Opera House’s Utzon Music season.

DETAILS

• CONCERT Brooklyn Rider

• WHERE Opera House Utzon Room

• WHEN March 3