Concert review: Bozzini Quartet

Midway through the Time:Spans Festival came two extraordinary evenings by the Montreal-based Bozzini Quartet. Since 1999 the ensemble has dedicated its expertise to new and experimental works, and these two concerts – each roughly 75 minutes long – demonstrated the players’ focus, commitment, artistry and stamina.

On the second night, composer Bekah Simms was inspired by the emotional range of infertility and joyous pregnancy to create Songs for Fallow Fields (2023–4), composed of four movements – ‘Warm Soil Song’, ‘Twilight Song’, ‘Pipe Song’ and ‘Plum Drone Song’ – each gliding easily across soft microtonal planes. Textures were sparse, with repeated patterns, and gently persistent pulses that might evoke the heartbeat of an unborn baby.

Klaus Lang was on hand for the premiere of the long field (2024), an exercise in motion that, as he explained, ‘paradoxically doesn’t go anywhere’. Combining microtonal music and passacaglia, and using octaves divided into 17 parts, Lang conjured glacial phrases with chords that occasionally evoked Bach chorales. It was given the most delicate of performances, the master’s influence heard as if hovering overhead, like fog glimpsed on hilltops.

In this context, James Tenney’s Koan for String Quartet (1984) emerged as a touchstone of 1980s minimalism, executed by the Bozzini with the care and sensitivity that infused the quartet’s entire mini-residency. Extending the Bach metaphor, Tenney’s microtonal undulations might have been four-part inventions, but compressed into glorious flatness.

The Bozzini Quartet’s first night was devoted to a single work: Jürg Frey’s String Quartet no.4, a 65-minute essay written between 2018 and 2022. In his opening comments, Frey mentioned the piece’s unorthodox structure: in five movements, the first four are roughly six to nine minutes each, followed by the concluding portion that lasts over half an hour. The composer’s language is calm, deliberate and intimate, with wisps of notes quietly appearing and receding. At some points – especially near the end – silences were as evocative as the tiny sounds bookending them.

It is hard to overstate the ensemble’s taut control, sustaining a mostly pianissimo volume level over the work’s long span. But having worked with the composer for over 20 years, the Bozzini must be considered one of his finest interpreters. Similar to embarking on a journey with Feldman, Frey asks listeners to sharpen their hearing and observe the most minute of details. Based on the audience reaction, many of us found the hour magical.

BRUCE HODGES