Formosa Quartet

Formosa Quartet

On October 11th, Thursday night, I attended the opening to EMPAC’s 10 year festival, “The Formosa Quartet”. Formosa, which means “beautifully formed” in Portuguese, was used to describe Taiwan by early settlers. This performance not only to highlighted the beautiful traditional music created by the quartet, but was also focused on EMPAC itself and showcasing the unique acoustic strengths of the different performance halls. This was an interesting experience for me; it forced me to consider the significance of the venue and setting, along with how that affects the music one listens to.
The first piece was orchestrated in the main Concert Hall with an unexpected twist; the audience was seated on the stage and the musicians appeared all the way back, in the top most balcony. The piece itself was by Haydn, who is known as the father of the string quartet. Haydn’s music, which is known for its choral tendencies, benefitted from the distance set between the musicians and its audience, as it enhanced the chamber-like feel of Concert hall and the experience itself. The balance was perfect, as the music beautifully displayed the power of the hall, and hall unveiled hidden characteristics of the music.

            For the second piece we moved to Studio 1 and were seated in an arrangement reminiscent of a Shakespearean theater, with the audience surrounding the musicians in circles. Bardok’s piece was loud and lively, making me feel like I was in the middle of a chase scene in a fast paced action movie, running away from some sort of unseen danger.

The next piece was located in Studio 2 and positioned with each musician located on a different wall, resulting in a unique effect of isolating each of the musicians while still listening to the piece as a whole. I used this venue to focus on the communication between the musicians themselves. The piece focused heavily on the concept of “instrument staggering”, which  required vast amounts of coordination to get all the harmonies correct. Seated in front of Jasmine Lin, one of the violinists, I watched her eyes darting from one member to another as she calculated the precise time to put her bow on her instrument. I was amazed to not only hear, but also see how in sync and attuned they were to each other and how that contributed to their sound as a group.

After that we moved to the theater where the quartet performed in the pit in a dimly lit room. Unlike the last piece, this one felt as it was meant to be experienced rather than seen, so I choose to sit with my eyes closed and let the sound envelop me. Similar to the second piece, there was also a sense of urgency, but this piece sounded much more ominous and foreboding. This was portrayed by the repeated stomping and plucking to intensify some of the eerie effects of the music.

The last piece brought the audience back to the concert hall to listen to a piece by Chinese American composer Lei Liang. While the seating of this setting was the most traditional of the five, with the quartet on stage and the rest of us in the usual seats, this piece was by far the most experimental, and to me the most interesting. It began with a series of long notes and chords, ranging from barely audible to quite loud and jarring. After this the sound progressed to the use of plucking, first with the cello and then to the viola and two violins, as well as some bouncing of the bows. As someone who is used to hearing string instruments performed in the classical sense it was strange to hear a whole segment of a piece performed by only plucking. With number of different techniques used, it would have been easy for the piece to become incohesive and fall apart, however somehow everything managed to fit perfectly.

Overall I was extremely impressed with the performance by the Formosa Quartet. Formosa means “beautifully formed”, and after experiencing them in person, I felt as if this word perfectly described the quartet, from their literal origins to each member’s perfect harmony with each other and the music they create.