{"id":13025,"date":"2013-06-11T07:46:24","date_gmt":"2013-06-11T12:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=13025"},"modified":"2013-06-11T07:46:24","modified_gmt":"2013-06-11T12:46:24","slug":"album-review-attacca-quartet-members-prove-themselves-as-john-adams-fellow-travelers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/06\/11\/album-review-attacca-quartet-members-prove-themselves-as-john-adams-fellow-travelers\/","title":{"rendered":"Album review: Attacca Quartet members prove themselves as John Adams&#8217; fellow travelers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/06\/Attacca.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13026\" alt=\"Attacca\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/06\/Attacca.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Young New Yorkers the Attacca Quartet have found the ideal vehicle for channeling some of that city&#8217;s unbridled energy in a new album of works by John Adams, released by Azica records.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/06\/adams.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-13028\" alt=\"adams\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/06\/adams.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/06\/adams.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/06\/adams-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a>Violinists Amy Schroeder and Keiko Tokunaga, violist Luke Fleming and cellist Andrew Yee bring panache as well as tremendous confidence to Adams&#8217; treacherous music.<\/p>\n<p>Best of all, they capture his infectious energy, which is particularly vivid in the short title piece, <em>Fellow Traveller<\/em>, from 2007, as well as the 10 movements in <em>John&#8217;s Book of Alleged Dances<\/em>, which dates from 1994.<\/p>\n<p>There is a lot to smile about in the names of these movements: Rag the Bone, Alligator Escalator, Stubble Crotchet and Toot Nipple are the kookiest examples. And what Adams does with his trademark repeated motifs and overlapping rhythms is pretty amazing.<\/p>\n<p>Most serious, in the sense of requiring serious listening, is the two-movement <em>String Quartet<\/em> from 2008.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, there is an overall insistence to this music that defies a long listening session.<\/p>\n<p>Just like after a New York City workday, absorbing the full album in one go put my nerve endings on edge and made me want to shut myself away in a still, quiet place for a while. But that&#8217;s a personal problem, not a statement on the quality of the music here.<\/p>\n<p>There is a Canadian connection in all of this: the album notes point out that the Attaccas were introduced to and initially coached in John Adams&#8217; music by the St Lawrence String Quartet. Also, 10 years into their professional existence, this foursome is finally ready to take on nine other ensembles in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.banffcentre.ca\/bisqc\/quartets\/\" target=\"_blank\">11th Banff International String Quartet Competition<\/a> in August.<\/p>\n<p>Based on their work in this album, they will be formidable competitors.<\/p>\n<p>Azica has a shamefully poor website, so for details as well as audio samples, go to the Attacca Quartet website <a href=\"http:\/\/attaccaquartet.com\/audio\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>John Terauds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Young New Yorkers the Attacca Quartet have found the ideal vehicle for channeling some of that city&#8217;s unbridled energy in a new album of works by John Adams, released by Azica records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,10,36,81,51,52,57,1],"tags":[6451,206,403,434,1267,1745,6471],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/pires1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-3o5","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13025"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13025"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}