Sounds of Peru

Indigenous Peruvian music inspires a new Concerto Grosso

CLEAN BOWING: On 24 April, Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja could be found playing Ligeti in a bathtub in the Southbank Centre Queen Elizabeth Hall’s Purcell Room. It was only a small part of the concert-theatre experience, ‘Everyday Non-Sense’, directed by the violinist and including works by Ligeti, Mozart and Cage. She was also joined by musicians from the Aurora Orchestra. The stage was set with a messy dining table, a bicycle and an assortment of pots and pans, among other everyday objects, used as both props and musical instruments in all manner of non-sensical ways.

Photo: Pete Woodhead

Gabriela Lena Frank

Takács Quartet

FRANK PHOTO MARIAH TAUGER. TAKÁCS PHOTO AMANDA TIPTON

COMPOSER Gabriela Lena Frank

WORK Kachkaniraqmi (‘I Still Exist’) for string quartet and string ensemble

ARTISTS Takács Quartet, Colorado Festival Musicians/Peter Oundjian

DATE 21 July 2024

PLACE Chautauqua Auditorium, Boulder, CO, US bit.ly/3USRl3T

‘I still exist’. This is the definition of Kachkaniraqmi, US composer Gabriela Lena Frank’s new Concerto Grosso for string quartet and string ensemble, which will be premiered by the Takács Quartet and musicians of the Colorado Music Festival. The term, which comes from the indigenous Peruvian language of Quechua, ‘reinforces the idea that post-conquest, these cultures still assert themselves through descendants’, says Frank. And Frank’s own upbringing, having been influenced by her Peruvian–Chinese mother and Lithuanian Jewish father, can be all but defined by this word.

Each of the work’s four movements are influenced by indigenous Peruvian music to different extents and in different ways. The quartet takes on several roles, from section leaders to individual soloists. The first movement, Preludio Andino (Andean Prelude), is ‘newly composed music that could pass for folk music’, says Frank. ‘It’s very tonal and very folkloric-sounding.’ The rest of the piece is in a ‘speculative style’ based on the meeting of Peruvian and Western classical music (similar to Béla Bartók’s methods), and stringed and indigenous instruments.

The second movement, Soliloquoi Serrano (Mountain Soliloquy), is ‘much craggier’ and includes rhythms from Peruvian music. The movement ends mysteriously before leading into a vibrant scherzo, Vientos Ladrones (Robber Winds). In this relentless and dance-like 6/8 movement, the quartet members are section leaders. The viola ends alone and transitions into the adagio last movement, Velorio Infantil (Child’s Wake). It takes its name from the velorio – a professional funeral vocalist who sings in a style that resembles crying (staying on one note with intermittent grace notes and inflections). This is passed around the quartet and ensemble before reaching a final climax.

About the Takács Quartet players (see page 44), Frank says: ‘They can do everything as a quartet. And they’re also such good people who really love and respect each other. That’s how we’re going to move audiences – when they hear that friendship.’