by Richard Whitehouse

Members of Klangforum Wien ([Annette Bik and Judith Fliedl (violins), Paul Beckett (viola), Andreas Lindenbaum (cello)]

Long synonymous with the Valley of the Temples, among the glories of Classical civilization, Agrigento is a city of the present and not least with Teatro dell’Efebo – a venue appropriate to a programme such as Symposion, presented by Klangforum Wien as part of Agrigento 2025.

According to Klangforum’s website, ‘‘The Symposion project takes up the theme of cultural intoxication which goes back to antiquity. This ancient social practice has inspired an evening with music of our time, perceived in the slowly changing conditions of collective and relaxed inebriation…’’. The actual programme was highly wide-ranging as to content and aesthetic (a full listing can be accessed via the link below), taking in pieces by European composers from the mid- or later twentieth century and concluding with Terry Riley’s (over?) influential In C.

Before that, however, came a second hearing (following its premiere in Salzburg last January by the Oesterreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik) of the String Quartet by Jorge E. López. Written during the winter of 2022-23, this piece follows on from his radiophonic composition Im Innersten: János Bolyai stirbt (previously reviewed on Arcana) while drawing on elements from his Fifth Symphony which, completed in 2023 after a five-year gestation, still awaits its first performance. Each of the Quartet’s two movements duly picks up on elements from either of those in the larger work, though this is not a case of reworking or even paraphrasing earlier material but rather the oblique evoking of it in terms of that creative application of Surrealism which has proved a mainstay of López’s compositional ethos throughout the past half century.

The first movement is prefaced by the title ‘‘Wie man wird, was man is’’ (How one becomes, what one is), which the composer feels appropriate for music that pivots constantly and with increasing desperation between rhetorical aggression and a wrenching eloquence – its motivic elements altering constantly though with a tangible sense of evolution as dynamic as it seems unpredictable. Towards its close this process mutates into a more sustained expression which might have become a ‘slow movement’, had it not opted to close in a becalmed ambivalence.

Barely a third of its predecessor’s length, the second movement is prefaced by the title ‘‘Was denach kommt’’ (What then follows) and picks up on a lengthy fugato such as rounds off the corresponding movement of the composer’s Fifth Symphony. Its musical subject is none other than the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice – source for orchestral works by Joseph Holbrooke and Havergal Brian – which here unfolds erratically while never haphazardly across the four instruments and on to an unequivocal conclusion the more affecting through its very inanity.

This account from the members of Klangforum Wien was as impressive as it was committed, evidently subtler and more sombre than that by OENM in Salzburg but with an undeniable grasp of the oblique yet always vital logic which is a hallmark of López’s music in ensuring its fascination and overall conviction. One hopes more performances will follow (the highly regarded Chaos Quartet of Vienna has expressed interest) and that the composer, who has recently finished his Variations for Orchestra, will embark on a successor before too long.

Published post no.2,545 – Monday 26 May 2025