The Marian String Quartet Journeyed Through Healing and Hope
On a Friday evening at the 92nd Street Y, the Marian Anderson String Quartet presented “On Being Enslaved,” a moving musical journey of healing and hope. More than just another classical music concert in the ongoing series by the Gateways Music Festival, this month, the musicians, and the program they performed, aptly demonstrated the Festival’s mission.
The organizational mission of the Gateways Music Festival is to connect and support professional classical musicians of African descent and enlighten and inspire communities through the power of performance. The Friday night concert, one of the many cultural offerings of this year’s seven-day festival, very much lived up to this mission in several distinctive ways.
The name of the quartet alone is referential of another great artist. An American contralto born in Philadelphia, PA. Marian Anderson was an operatic virtuoso who performed with renowned orchestras in major concert and recital venues around the world. It was the program and the way that quartet presented each work that not only engaged the audience but helped reframe the presumptuous racial narrative inherent to this genre. As such, this performance was unique in that before a single note was played, the musicians offered a brief explanation about each work. This empowered the audience with a balanced narrative and context. It informed not just what we were listening to, but even how we should listen.
The program opened with Rhiannon Giddens’ “At the Purchaser’s Option with Variations.” It was composed in 1977 and commissioned for “Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire.” The composition references a mother with her nine-month-old baby for sale on the slave-auction block. Prior to playing the piece, the meaning of the title was explained to be standard slave market language that gave the buyer the discretion of taking the mother with or without her child. This understanding informed the music as we collectively listened.
Setting forth from this dark history, the program moves on to explore the challenges and the joys encountered on the road to freedom with Jonathan McNair’s 1959 composition “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” the second movement, “On Being Enslaved.” It was haunted by the familiar strains of “Let My People Go” and “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”
McNair’s composition was followed by Samuel Adler‘s “In Memoriam: Marian Anderson” and David Wallace’s “In Honor of Marian Anderson” pieces filled with musical expressions of sadness and joy. Although I was never fortunate enough to hear Anderson live, my own connection to her was a well-worn LP album titled, “Songs my Mother Taught Me,” which became a favorite bedtime record I would play for my young son. A treasured memory and keepsake to this day.
Antonin Dvorak’s (pronounced “duh·vor·zhaak”) “American” String Quartet opened the second half of the program. This piece rounded the musical dialogue in that it was noted that the Czech-born composer was inspired to write it after hearing traditional African-American and Native-American music. It is an interesting comparative footnote to realize that Dvorak was one of the first Czech composers to achieve worldwide recognition in classical music. No piece of American music is complete unless it represents the African-Americna and native american tradition of music.
The Marian Anderson String Quartet concluded the evening’s musical journey with an emphasis on hope for the future. Something we all use a lot more of these days. They drew upon the well-known work of John Rosamond Johnson’s and James Weldon Johnson’s joyful “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.” Although interestingly enough the quartet didn’t reference the piece as the “anthem” we have all come to know, the quartet allowed the work to stand on its own merits and did indeed lift every spirit. After which, the appreciative audience gave Marianne Henry, violin; Nicole Cherry, violin; Diedra Lawrence, viola; and Prudence McDaniel, cello; a well-deserved standing ovation. Brava!
See our other reviews on the Gateways Music Festival.