PubliQuartet. Photo: Lara St John
In this latest episode of Lara St John’s superb series The Atterbury House Sessions, PubliQuartet appeared in the Atterbury mansion, bolstered by clean sound and unobtrusive camerawork, against a backdrop of dark wood shelves with candles and flowers.
Jessie Montgomery wrote Voodoo Dolls (2008) for the Jump! Dance Company of Rhode Island, and its frenzied rhythms, combined with slapping the instruments’ wood, make a heady mix. Coming scarcely a week after a quintet version from the Minnesota Orchestra, the quartet offered its own unique sizzling take.
In Jessica Meyer’s ebullient Get into the Now (2018), percussive accents also reign supreme, but here anchoring wiry timbres and an aggressive cello underpinning. Given the composer’s status as a violist, an idyllic viola solo appears, like smoke gently rising. But that didn’t last long, as the musicians plunged into a furious array of hyperventilated runs, fingerboard slaps, and bow and finger taps on strings, before a short vocal outburst ended it all.