Ben Verdery & Ulysses Quartet - A Giant Beside You (2023) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Guitarist and composer Ben Verdery cites Leonard Bernstein’s magnanimous artistic spirit as the inspiration for this album of new works for guitar and string quartet with the Ulysees Quartet. Indeed, Bernstein’s openness can be seen reflected in the eclectic aesthetic territory on offer, from Bryce Dessner’s percolating Quintet for High Strings to Verdery’s two works for electric guitar and quartet, and Javier Farias’ South American influenced Andean Suite to Verdery’s arrangement of Bernstein’s Clarinet Sonata.

The album opens with Bryce Dessner’s Quintet for High Strings. Dessner enjoys a very diverse career, as one of the leaders of the indie band The National, a prolific composer, and classical guitarist in ensemble and solo settings. The title of the work is a bit of a play on words — Dessner calls for Verdery’s guitar to be restrung with all high strings. The result is a vibrant texture in which common arpeggio figures that would normally cross registers are now heard in one tessitura, as complex scalar passages. Dessner finds creative ways to embed this high-strung guitar into the ensemble sound of the quartet over three contrasting sections.

Guitar transcriptions of works for bowed string or wind instruments come with built in challenges, for the obvious reason that the guitar cannot easily replicate the sustain and variation of timbre and dynamic within the duration of a note that the breath or a bow can facilitate. In his arrangement of Bernstein’s Clarinet Sonata, Verdery addressed those issues by spreading the clarinet and piano material throughout the quintet in ways that play to the different instrument’s strengths. The flowing, lyrical material works naturally with the guitar in the lead melodic role, with the quartet providing harmonic support. When the parts become more active, the guitar’s percussive attack gives those passages rhythmic incision. The result is a charming version of the piece, an addition of a work by one of the 20th century’s most beloved figures to the guitar and string quartet repertoire.

The next two works on the program are composed by Verdery himself, and feature his performances on electric guitar. About to Fall is dedicated to recently passed composer Ingram Marshall, a longtime colleague of Verdery’s at Yale University. The evocative work grows from one gestural idea — a swell initiated by electric guitar or strings that is passed off to a different subset of the ensemble at its peak. The title track is a reworking of an older piece for guitar quartet which was commissioned with the directive that it reference the Sly and the Family Stone song, “Stand.” The electric guitar writing in A Giant Beside You is decidedly vernacular, employing liberal distortion and techniques drawn from the toolbox of rock guitarists, such as the use of slide, whammy bar, and wah wah pedal. The piece careens ahead with funky, interlocking rhythmic figures in the strings interrupted by irreverent guitar interjections.

Javier Farias’ Andean Suite draws inspiration from the culture traditions, natural environment, and music of South America, specifically the Andean region. The opening movement, “Yawar Fiesta,” takes it name from an annual Peruvian ritual fight between a bull and an Andean condor. Farias characterizes the bull with flamenco inflected guitar material and the condor with music of the Andes. After a fiery guitar introduction, the quartet enters with swirling, impassioned figures, eventually merging together in intense intertwined passages. “Diablada” is based on a well known traditional dance in Bolivia that is part of Carnival, involving colorful costumes and masks. Farias’ setting is rhapsodic, unfolding in waves, capturing the catharsis of the communal celebration. The final movement, “Huayno,” is based on a rhythm from the Altiplano, a region at the intersection of Peru, Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia. Farias embeds virtuosic, stylized passagework inside the alternating duple and triple groupings embedded in the folkloric rhythm.

From the exuberance of the folk material in the Farias, to the integration of vernacular styles into a traditionally classical instrumentation in the Verdery, to Dessner’s creative approach to changing the guitar’s natural tessitura, this album is decidedly American in its populist stance. It is fitting then that the Bernstein completes the set, an echo of his big tent approach to aesthetics. Verdery and the Ulysses Quartet are persuasive advocates throughout, bringing verve to the rhythmic material and grace to the more lyrical moments.

Tracklist:
01. Quintet for High Strings
02. Sonata for Clarinet and Piano: I. Grazioso
03. Sonata for Clarinet and Piano: II. Andantino-Vivace Leggiero
04. About To Fall
05. A Giant Beside You
06. Andean Suite: I. Yawar Fiesta
07. Andean Suite: II. Huayno
08. Andean Suite: III. Diablada


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