The Hungarian word "Hallgató," the title of the first movement of the guitar concerto by jazz guitarist Ferenc Snétberger, means "student," but also "listener"; the audience for this live concert of music by Snétberger and others is invited to listen and learn. The program of music by Snétberger and the Keller Quartet is ingenious and powerful. It opens and closes with music by Snétberger, and the other works, quite various, share the haunting mixture of public-facing and inward heard in Snétberger's concerto and rhapsody. Samuel Barber, who has often been used to good effect by the otherwise resolutely contemporary-oriented Keller Quartet, is present with the original string quartet version of the Adagio for Strings, and there are arrangements of two Dowland lute songs that would seem to be completely out of place but most assuredly are not. The largest piece in the center of the program is the Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110, and there is no one whose music seems to conceal personal reflection and memory under the surface more than Shostakovich. Snétberger's music, especially the Rhapsody at the end, has jazz-like elements, and he is actually better known as a jazz player than as a classical composer; this adds another layer of tension to a program that has a lot of it and compels the listener's attention from beginning to end. The only complaint is the live sound; ECM does its formidable best, but the coughs of a Budapest winter at the Liszt Academy Grand Hall intrude.
© James Manheim /TiVo