By June April

The range of music played by the Shanghai Quartet last Sunday moved backward through time. The group performed in Newtown’s Edmond Town Hall auditorium in a concert hosted by Newtown Friends of Music.

The March 19 concert opened with a hauntingly evocative work, “Song of Ch’ in” by 47 year-old composer, Zhou Long. Then an earlier work, “Transfigured Night,” by Arnold Schoenberg, who died two years before Dr Long was born, followed.

The second half of the program took another step back in time, into the late 19th Century with String Sextet in D minor, Opus 70 by Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). The common thread of these three works was the very visual nature of the music.

Founded some 17 years ago in China at Shanghai Conservatory of Music, this masterful group has continued to always move on an upward wave of recognition for the excellence of its musicianship. Regularly performing at the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C., The Shanghai Quartet concertizes throughout the United States as well as in many countries overseas.

There are several aspects to this quartet that sets it apart: a very strong commitment to bringing their music into schools, a musical “vehicle” to their homeland’s contemporary as well as traditional musical tradition, and a level of technical skill and sensitivity of playing that continues to garner wide acclaim.

The opening Longwork was based on a Tang Dynasty (618-906) poem called “Old Fisherman.” The use of plucking (“pizzicato”), tremolo (playing on the other side of the bridge), glissando (tapping the violin body), plus uses of the pentatonic scale all worked together to evoke images of water, earth and sky. It was peaceful, yet transporting, music to experience.

In contrast, the heavier richness of Schoenberg’s music (which was inspired by a poem written by Richard Dehmel), offered another example of how music can describe emotions and place. The setting was of a forest, at night, under a full moon, with the confession of a pregnant woman to a man she loves the storyline of this piece.

Though deeply troubled in his personal life, Tchaikovsky used his musical genius to write moving, romantic music. Most famous for ballet music to accompany the stories The Nutcracker, Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, Tchaikovsky’s range of creativity included symphonies, concertos and chamber music as well.

In the String Sextet heard last weekend, the violist Marcus Thompson and the cellist Alisa Weilerstein augmented the Shanghai four. (The Schoenberg performance also employed all six musicians.)

While the beauty and synchronous harmony of the Shanghai musicians was to be relished, the energy of Ms Weilerstein was a diversion to the eye. What with blue eyes rolling wildly and her exaggerated gesticulations, it was easier to avoid watching her and focus on the other musicians.

The Shanghai Quartet’s two brothers, Weigang and Honggang Li were originally both playing violin when the quartet formed. The brothers began their violin studies at the age of 5, and have become accomplished and modest musicians.

When Yiwen Jiang joined the quartet six years ago, Honggang Li became the violist. He is outstanding in the beauty of his tone. Though undoubtedly equally gifted as a violinist, Mr Li excels as a violist.

The violist Li mentioned after the performance that The Shanghai Quartet actively pursues opportunities to bring their music into schools. The group, as does others who care deeply concerned about the future of classical music, is taking a more aggressive stance of taking the music to young people and varying audiences.