Reviews:

CONCERT REVIEW
Who - 'Jade' String Quartet - Miranda Adams, William Hanfling, Robert Ashworth, Claudia Price
Where - Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church - Raglan
When - Thursday, 25th October 2007. 7.30pm
Reviewed by - R. Max Stewart

From Vivaldi to Jimmy Hendrix is almost too much of a cultural leap to expect from the four musicians who formed the Jade String Quartet at Raglan on Thursday night - but they did it!

It was a night of music which attempted to appeal to every one of the good sized audience who attended this excellent concert, though naturally the group demonstrated their fine musicianship best when presenting music of their specialised genre.

The first half contained the more formal programme leading off with their own arrangement of 'Spring' from 'The Four Seasons' by Vivaldi which was then followed by movements of string quartets by Mozart, Schubert and Debussy. The group, who have obviously succeeded in combining their own excellent individual musical skills with a high sense of ensemble, presented these demanding pieces with style, sensitivity and obvious enjoyment.
Two New Zealand compositions by Leonie Holmes and Anthony Ritchie were also included in this half, and these provided the group an opportunity to display their skills in successfully interpreting atonal music as well as a variety of emotional and rhythmic effects, which held the audience spellbound at times.

The second half offered a more diverse range of music. From the well-known Albeniz 'Tango' through to Shostakovich, from Brubeck to Joplin - each piece presented with the same attention to detail, dynamic range and delightful innuendo, which characterised this whole concert.
Perhaps the exemplification of all of this was demonstrated in the performance of an arrangement of the traditional 'Turkey in the Straw', which not only appeared to demand all the skills of the players, but was performed with a sense of fun and pure enjoyment which was certainly appreciated by the audience.

This was a highly successful concert by these four talented musicians under the auspices of 'Arts on Tour' and the Raglan Community Arts Council, and one which I hope will be repeated in the future.
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12/07/07

Nelson Evening Mail, Reviewed by Margot Hannigan
"Quartet's debut a stunner"

"...Thier programme was perfectly chosen. It began with a classically traditional Haydn String Quartet in B Minor, but it was performed palyfully and vigourously, showing the lively balance of the ensemble. I especially enjoyed the intensity of the semi-quavers from the inner parts.

For the second item, Shostakovich's Quartet No. 4, Hanfling was the leader. This is a quartet full of intmacy...and is performed in one continuous movement. This was such a commited and sincere performance.

The second half was Death and the Maiden, music that is full of solace and beauty for a man dying of syphilis... The audience took a deep breath after the many tende variations of the slow movement only to be thrown into a rousing defiant scherzo, followed by a finale that seemed to run like a team of galloping horses, slipping away into the distance, then returning full tilt with furious triplets, with Price holding the reins.

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The Jade String Quartet at Awhitu

After their extremely successful performance last August, the Jade Quartet returned to the lovely setting of "Heaven-Under-The-Moon" on April 27th. The players were Miranda Adams, William Hanfling, violins, Robert Ashworth, viola, and Claudia Price, cello. As last time there was a capacity audience in the splendid drawing room.

The carefully thought out programme was titled "Time and Spirit" and included complementary readings by the performers of prose and poetry before each item. The first reading was "Harmony" from by William Strode and told how there was always harmony in our souls. This was followed by John Dowland's, "Lachrimae Suite" which was slow and full of lovely harmonies which were expressively played bringing out the beauty of the work.
The second couplet started with the prose "Moonlight" by Verlaine saying how our souls were inhabited by fanciful disguises. The musical complement was Claude Debussy's String Quartet in G minor Op.10. This was performed with verve, especially the rhythmic first and fourth movements. The scherzo with its sparkling pizzicato passages was a delight while the third movement was particularly notable for the vivid interpretation of its enchanting melody.
After the intermission, the second half of the programme commenced with a further reading from Verlaine, "Muted" depicting souls merging with nature. The accompanying music was String Quartet in A minor, op. 132 by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is the second member of his final five quartets, his last completed works. In five movements, it expresses his spirituality and his relationship with God and nature and is perhaps the best known; it contains the famous third movement "Holy Song of Thanksgiving to God from one healed of sickness, in the Lydian mode". Here, the Jade Quartet brought out the deep emotion and pathos of this profound work and with the vitality of the playing we were completely drawn into Beethoven's world.
Finally, we had "Poem" by Tom Clark on the subject of becoming spiritually free. The musical counterpart was three bright and engaging pieces from New Zealander Jonathan Besser's Hudson River Pieces. Instantly attractive in their melodies and rhythm, these pieces seemed reminiscent of central European gypsy music and were a rousing end to a wonderful evening's entertainment and enlightenment. The Jade String Quartet is definitely a group not to be missed by the music lover.

Many thanks to Cheryle Gail and her helpers who organised the venue and refreshments and to the Franklin Arts and Cultural Trust who provided help with funding.

David Adams.

A Magic Concert at Awhitu

This past Saturday afternoon saw a sizable group of people enthusiastically taking pleasure from a superb concert by the Jade String Quartet in the enchanting setting of Heaven Under The Moon at Boiler Gully Road, Awhitu. This world class String Quartet draws its members from key orchestras. Miranda Adams (violin) is associate concert master with the Auckland Philharmonic, William Hanfling is acting Sub-Principal of the 2nd violins of the same orchestra, Robert Ashworth is Assistant-Principal Viola of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and Claudia Price is a cellist with the Auckland Philharmonic and a number of other music ensembles.

The capacity audience (Robert Ashworth announced that it was wonderful to see so many people in the middle of nowhere!) was treated to a rewarding programme of varied music covering a span of 400 years. The scene was quite magical with the quartet performing in the big bay window of the large living room of this lovely old two storey homestead. A splendid back drop through the window of late afternoon sun and native bush and conifers was much enhanced by the excellent acoustics allowing the music to be heard as it was intended by the composers, clearly and intimately rather than as it is heard so often nowadays, distantly and impersonally in a large auditorium.

The programme started with five Galliards from "Lachrimae or Seven Tears" by John Dowland, published in 1604, and the crisp playing allowed one to imagine a court filled with people stepping these stately dances.

Next was the epic Schubert Quartet "Der Tod und das Madchen" (Death and the Maiden), 1824, a symphony long work of passion and beauty. The Jade Quartet convincingly brought out its wonderful melodies and it could be understood why this piece is seen by some as one of Schubert's great masterpieces.

The generous interval enabled those present to enjoy the afternoon tea, take in the garden and view the exhibitions in the art studio.

Now it was into the more challenging half, challenging because the music was 20th century and our ears are not always as familiar with the less obvious progressions.

First up was a short piece by John Psathas, the Greek born New Zealand composer who is perhaps known for his music written for the opening of the Greek Olympics last year. His "Abhishka" was written recently for the New Zealand Quartet and uses quarter tones as found in much middle and far eastern music. To untrained western ears, it could have sounded as a series of out of tone sequences but with the quartet's interpretive playing it sounded flowing and contemplative and I found myself remembering the music that I have heard in bazaars and wanting further hearings.

The final piece was Quartet Number 4 by Dmitri Shostokovich. Not performed in public until after Stalin's death, this work's strong rhythms and angular harmonies strike the listener forcibly but this impact was eased by the intimate and sensitive playing and its conclusion left the audience demanding more.

And so we were rewarded with a virtuoso performance Jacob Gade's Jealousy Tango which even had a rakish vocal accompaniment by Miranda Adams. This performance brought the roof down and thus ended a delightful afternoon's entertainment.

Concert on July 30th
Fresh and Lively Concert from Jade Quartet
Published in the Daily Post (local Rotorua paper) last night, Monday 1 August.

The Jade String Quartet gave a fresh and lively concert at St Lukes church on Saturday night. This Auckland ensemble was formed very recently but its members have great experience and are lead by an outstanding musician, the dynamic violinist Miranda Adams.

They started with a set of galliards from the 16th C. by John Dowland and originally played with viols and lutes. Jade’s modern strings caught these early instrument tones and dance styles splendidly.

In Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’ they had a sure sense of how to bring off the mixture of sunshine and dark clouds in the music. There wasn’t of course that polish and close cohesion which takes years for an ensemble to reach but, as with their name, the piece had elegant shape and colour.

‘Abhishenka’ by the Wellington composer John Psathas was a novel and powerful aural experience. There was little of the normal direct musical emotion in the piece but its eerie string sounds conjured up vivid images and feelings.

Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 4, written at a time of the social and political upheavals around the Second World War, uses Jewish idioms as a metaphor for oppressed artist. Jade showed sensible judgement by playing delicately and emphasizing the folk dance tunes and so avoided making the piece overpoweringly grim.

The concert ended with any gloom removed by an encore of Gershwin’s breezy ‘The Man I Love’.

H.S.F.
(Hanno S. Fairburn)

The Jade String Quartet with Tatiana Lanchtchikova

The Belmont Rose Centre
North Shore City, Friday, July 22nd, 2005
This has been written for the next Music Matters magazine. Vol. 2

Reviewer: Laurence Jenkins

It’s not often that one is present at the "baptism by fire" of a string quartet in their first public concert. The last time for me was in the 1980s when the New Zealand String Quartet made its first appearance in Wellington. That was a momentous occasion, accompanied by much publicity and hullabaloo, and the NZSQ has gone on to establish itself both nationally and internationally and received well-deserved praise for its many concerts and recordings.

In stark contrast, the Jade String Quartet - Miranda Adams and William Hanfling, violins; Robert Ashworth, viola; and Claudia Price, cello - made their debut in the humble surroundings of the Belmont Rose Centre on Auckland’s North Shore to practically no publicity and a small audience and proved themselves to be as precious as the mineral for which they are named.

The sense of occasion began after the first notes of Dowland’s "Lacrymae", for it was clear then that this was a quartet with a difference - not afraid to step outside the square and offer something rare and precious, even if played "un-authentically". (Improbable as it may seem, the muted strings on this occasion could’ve been mistaken for a chest of viols, so successful were the players in bringing a sense of style to their performing.)

After Franz Schubert’s magnificent "Death and the Maiden" quartet, which this ensemble played as a nod to the conventional and played very well, we heard Shostakovich’s Fourth String Quartet, performed with assurance and understanding. It’s a difficult work for both musician and audience, but none of that difficulty was allowed to stand in the way of the amazing ability this group has to communicate.

There are, as expected with any new group, some minor ensemble problems that can be cleared up as they continue to play together. Rarely did suspect intonation rear its ugly head, and the overall sound was distinct, gutsy (pardon the pun, although these were very modern instruments, all steel strings), and exciting.

The John Psathas "Abisheka", which probably had not been heard in Auckland before, was a true test - a modern work, amplified with reverb, full of quarter-tones and moving very slowly. It was a success with the audience, thanks to the committed performance on offer.

Ending up with some of Piazzolla’s tangos is not a new idea, but Tatiana Lanchtchikova’s accordian added colour and flair to the ensemble and the "Five Tango Sensations" brought the concert to a resounding end.

Let’s hope we hear more and more of the Jade.

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