In Axiom Quartet’s world, blending ’80s new wave with Alban Berg’s “Lyric Suite” makes total sense.
THE AXIOM QUARTET
Love is not all hearts and butterflies.
“Love is a hard thing to do,” says Dominika Dancewicz, violinist with Houston’s Axiom Quartet, which she co-founded with cellist Patrick Moore. “Sometimes, it is broken hearts. Sometimes, it is the impossibility. Sometimes, it is a love affair that is forbidden.”
A covert liaison stands at the forefront of the ensemble’s upcoming concert, “Sultry Secrets,” which premieres Saturday at Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church. The pre-Valentine’s Day program features different facets of love, juxtaposing Alban Berg’s “Lyric Suite” with three hits of the ’80s — George Michael’s “Careless Whisper,” Spandau Ballet’s “True” and Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is,” all arranged by Karl Blench.
By incorporating such popular rock ballads that exemplify the lusciousness of a relationship into the program, the quartet aims to get the audience more involved while offsetting the intensity of the dramatic story of unrequited love in “Lyric Suite.”
Berg’s composition parallels his rather weighty inspiration — a torrid, fiery affair between him and a married woman, Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, in 1925.
In coded form, the piece is a thorough description of what transpired between them, from an innocent first encounter to a late night full of passionate whispers to Berg’s impending devastation, knowing they could never truly be together.
In fact, the progression of their affair is reflected in the titles of the six emotionally charged movements, the first of which is called “Allegretto Gioviale,” meaning brisk and jovial, and the last being “Largo Desolato,” or slow and desolate.
The backstory is not the only appeal to the piece however, Dancewicz said. From a technical standpoint, it’s one of the most difficult in the string quartet literature.
Based on Arnold Schoenberg’s 12-tone technique known as dodecaphony, the score, which lacks a particular key, is entirely devised from a row of 12 notes of the chromatic scale.
“We want to hear certain turns. We want to hear certain tensions. We want to hear certain resolutions, and in music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn, we do get those resolutions,” she said. “However, in music by Schoenberg and Berg and people who were associated with the Second Viennese School, those elements are gone, and we enter the world of atonality.”
Even still, Berg captures sensuality through cryptic signals in the score. In typical Axiom style, the quartet will discuss the tools, such as this, that Berg uses in his composition in between each movement, providing their listeners with greater insight into how the composer achieves his secret language.
The purpose of both parts of the program, Dancewicz says, is to emotionally provoke those who are listening.
“If you feel moved by a power ballad, or if you feel moved by a crazy atonal piece, and it raises your hair, what can be better?”