{"product_id":"lees-b-string-quartets-nos-1-5-and-6","title":"Lees, B.: String Quartets Nos. 1, 5 and 6","description":"I sat down to type up this review late on the evening of Tuesday                   1 June 2010. Halfway through doing so, wanting to check a date,                   I went to the \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.benjaminlees.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ewebsite\u003c\/a\u003e                   devoted to Benjamin Lees, where I was faced with the following                   announcement: “IT IS WITH PROFOUND SADNESS THAT THE FAMILY                   ANNOUNCES THE PASSING OF COMPOSER BENJAMIN LEES ON MAY 31, 2010”.                   This review - written on the day after the composer’s death                   - necessarily becomes more of a memorial than I intended it to                   be when I sat down to put it together. \u003cbr\u003e                    \u003cbr\u003e                  Lees was born in China, brought up and educated in California.                   From 1949 to 1954 he studied with George Antheil who acted as                   a largely unpaid tutor out of respect for Lees’ abilities.                   From the mid-1950s onwards his works began to be performed quite                   widely and by distinguished performers, without his ever perhaps                   becoming a ‘major’ figure in American music. A Guggenheim                   fellowship enabled him to spend much of his time in Europe in                   the second half of the 1950s. Never a composer who aspired to                   be thought of as especially ‘American’, these European                   years were important for Lees, years when he could evolve his                   own voice without direct involvement in the style wars of American                   music. Prokofiev, Bartók and Shostakovich became important                   exemplars for Lees. \u003cbr\u003e                    \u003cbr\u003e                    In a \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bruceduffie.com\/lees.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e1987                   interview\u003c\/a\u003e with Bruce Duffie, when the interviewer enquired                   “in a great number of your own works, you have used the                   traditional approach - Slonimsky calls it accessibility - which                   makes your music attractive to conductors and soloists.                    Is this something you have consciously built in to your pieces,                   or is this an outgrowth of what you wanted to write innately?”,                   Lees answered as follows: “The accessibility, I suppose,                   comes from something that George Antheil told me when I was studying                   with him.  He put it very succinctly, and it was one of those                   catch words which stuck in the memory.  He said, “Music                   must have a face.  A theme must have a face, something which                   is really recognizable, both to you and to the listener.”                    And again, it matters not what style a person writes in, but it                   cannot simply be amorphous.  It cannot be really formless                   and it cannot be merely notes spinning”. Certainly Lees’                   music never seeks to exclude listeners, or to make their life                   needlessly difficult by the flaunting of the composer’s                   ‘cleverness’. Nor, on the other hand, does he write                   down, or write to please some lowest common denominator of taste                   and demand. Like any substantial composer, Lees seems always to                   have been true to himself, to have been serenely unworried, so                   far as one can judge, by matters of mere fashion or popularity.                   Honesty, indeed, has always struck me as one of the hallmarks                   of his work, a directness of communication. It seems appropriate                   that he should once have said that “there are two kinds                   of composers. One is the intellectual and the other is visceral.                   I fall into the latter category. If my stomach doesn’t tighten                   at an idea, then it’s not the right idea.” \u003cbr\u003e                      \u003cbr\u003e                  Most attention - and perhaps rightly so - has been paid to Lees’                   orchestral works, not least his five symphonies. But, as this                   disc demonstrates well and clearly, he also had plenty to say                   in that other ‘classical’ form - the string quartet,                   of which he wrote six. This rewarding Naxos disc contains three                   of them in fine performances by the Cypress Quartet, for whom                   the fifth and the sixth were written. \u003cbr\u003e                    \u003cbr\u003e                  The Cypress Quartet begin their programme with Lees’ first                   quartet, written in 1952, and premiered the following year in                   Los Angles - and in 1954 played in New York by the Budapest Quartet.                   In three movements (moderato-adagietto-allegro vivo) it has an                   appealing grace, at its most obvious in the adagietto, a lovely                   moment that exudes a simplicity - created by considerable art                   - and only slightly troubled lyricism that has a more or less                   pastoral quality. In the movement that precedes it some crisp                   and dynamic writing alternates with more reflective passages.                   In the last movement - essentially a rondo - the writing is engagingly                   animated, seeming to speak out of a mind full of ideas and eagerness.                   A quartet well worth hearing - especially when so well performed                   - but not yet fully embodying the composer’s mature voice.                   \u003cbr\u003e                    \u003cbr\u003e                  The two ‘late’ quartets give us that voice in abundance.                   The four movements of the fifth quartet (measured - arioso - quick,                   quiet - explosive) form a musical argument of considerable density,                   marked both by striking moments and a sense of larger design.                   The writing for cello at the opening of the first movement, and                   the ensuing dialogue with the other instruments is one of those                   striking moments. Another comes in the second movement when an                   aggressive intervention by the cello disrupts the meditative conversation                   of the two violins. The more one listens, the more such moments                   one discovers. The third movement is a miniature delight (it lasts                   less than two minutes), music of evanescent beauty. The contrast                   with the fourth movement could hardly be more marked - full as                   it is of musical contention and turbulence, of assertion and annoyed                   counter-assertion, a conflict not so much resolved as serving                   to fuel a still angry ending. \u003cbr\u003e                      \u003cbr\u003e                  Where the sixth quartet is concerned the composer’s markings                   for its four movements say most of what the mere reviewer might                   want to say about the work: “measured, dolorous - calm,                   steady - quiet, eerie - unhurried”. And they are! The use                   pizzicato passages is a particular feature of this quartet - notably                   at moments in the first and third movements. Without any wilful                   oddity or eccentricity, Lees creates some fresh and interesting                   effects at more than one point in this quartet. To say that one                   can ‘hear’ his respect for Bartók and Shostakovich                   is not, repeat not, to belittle his work as derivative. It is                   merely to recognise that, like 99% (or more!) of all artists,                   Lees was not a toweringly inventive figure. He was a highly accomplished                   craftsman who had listened to, and learned from, the music of                   the past and the present; a composer who refused to be merely                   modish or to chase the fashionable at the cost of fidelity to                   what he \u003ci\u003efelt\u003c\/i\u003e to be right for him. \u003cbr\u003e                    \u003cbr\u003e                  It is, I hope, timely to celebrate Lees’ achievement, immediately                   after his death. Not a composer of spectacular fame, he worked                   with a seriousness and truth that some more famous fall short                   of. \u003cbr\u003e                    \u003cbr\u003e                   -- Glyn Pursglove, MusicWeb International","brand":"Naxos","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49705105260824,"sku":"636943962824","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/1539223.jpg?v=1777585647","url":"https:\/\/hbdirect.com\/products\/lees-b-string-quartets-nos-1-5-and-6","provider":"HBDirect","version":"1.0","type":"link"}