Attacca Quartet: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Tom Huizenga | November 18, 2016 - Classical music observers say we're living in a golden age of string quartets. It's hard to disagree when you hear the vibrant young players in New York's Attacca Quartet.
They revere the old school, having recently completed a performance cycle of all 68 string quartets by Joseph Haydn, the man who invented the genre. They also hunger for the new, exploring the music of three living composers each year in a project called Recently Added.
One contemporary composer the group continues to champion is John Adams. The head-banging pulsations of "Toot Nipple" (titled after a character in an Annie Proulx story) contrast with the slippery and funky episodes in "Alligator Escalator." Adams has said he imagined such a creature waddling up and down the floors of Macy's department store. The two movements belong to John's Book of Alleged Dances from 1994.
Next to Adams, Haydn sounds positively genteel, but you needn't look far to find the composer's own feisty side. Sunny skies suddenly turn threatening at the turn of a phrase - a trend in Haydn's time known as Sturm und Drang, or "Storm and Stress" - when moods can swing wildly with impunity.
Measured by the cello's tick-tock pizzicato, the mood of Michael Ippolito's Smoke Rings is languid, even a little trippy. Inspired by a 14th-century French song about a smoking society, the composer employs long, slow strokes and light bow pressure for a hazy texture. The music heats up dramatically midway through, only to drift back into the smoke.
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SET LIST:
Adams: "Toot Nipple"
Adams: "Alligator Escalator"
Haydn: "String Quartet in D, Op. 76, No. 5 - I. Allegretto"
Ippolito: "Smoke Rings"
MUSICIANS:
Amy Schroeder, Keiko Tokunaga (violin); Nathan Schram (viola); Andrew Yee (cello)
CREDITS:
Producers: Tom Huizenga, Niki Walker; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Videographers: Niki Walker, Nicole Boliaux; Editor: Nicole Boliaux; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Production Assistant: Anna Marketti; Photo: Raquel Zaldivar/NPR.
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[@trevorbsmith716]

This makes me SOOOOO happy!!! Amy Schroeder is a GODDESS. I took piano lessons from her mom for 14 years and all I can say is that they are the kindest, most compassionate, and talented people I've EVER met. Feels so good to see incredible people's hard work pay off... GO ATTACCA GO!!!! 🙏✊🙏

[@renekitty2]

I just came here from a super soft and laid back NPR and boy, I was not ready for this intensity Kind of reminds me of Moon Hooch in the way that they are able to manipulate their instruments to get exactly the sound they want (ie. the beginning of Alligator Escalator). The dysfunctional and chromatic tones must be so hard to play and truly proves how talented these musicians are Top notch stuff

[@karlwinkler66]

Absolutely fabulous from beginning to end. True masters of their craft!

[@RamblinRamirez]

Awesome.. Imagine Chris Thile right there in the middle. Damn son.

[@korisnthere]

Really good performance. I'd not heard Ippolito before but I'm glad I know of him now.

[@creolecookin8854]

how I do love my tiny desk

[@johnathanjackson6258]

This is awesome! I actually had the opportunity to meet the entire quartet. Randomly, I was in restaurant in Augusta, Georgia while they were in town. I struck up a conversation with one of the members and was actually invited to a show. Thank you guys! I hope you are all doing well!

[@anterix1999]

Fantastic!

[@firesidecheat]

Thank God for Haydn...

[@rachelhume1184]

Alligator Escalator legit gave me high stress anxiety.

[@071949]

Rachel, I am w/ you; almost enough to trigger a panic attack! 11/25/2016

[@jesse6799]

sAmE fAm

[@jharmon8729]

Absolutely brilliant

[@carrolly2k]

Bravo!!!!!!

[@NicoloP3419]

6:15 Haydn: "String Quartet in D, Op. 76, No. 5 - I. Allegretto"

[@PlainD]

If I could do a thumbs-up with an exclamation point, I would.

[@JoshSemans]

Lovely!

[@Hyper88]

Brilliant!

[@GustavoStrauss]

oh yes.

[@IkariAin]

Bravo!!! just magnificient

[@GJSINNWWW]

Can't take anything composed by John Adams seriously, but the Hayden piece was performed beautifully.

[@RayasNegroOvejas]

Thorium 229m why not? (Don't know much about him or his work besides the film scores, Nixon in China…)

[@cheetoman23]

They are not accessible to the ordinary person. I find his work polarizing for myself, with truly great pieces (his most popular), like grand pianola, harmonielehre, harmonium, and the dharma at big sur, but much of his other work is so deeply avant-garde or atonal that it feels more like an intensely written ear-sore.

[@071949]

cheetoman23, "An intensely written ear-sore" is an apt description. Love it! 11/25/2016

[@MatthewJohnsonA]

Totally agree.

[@gab9690]

Xetaka 1 was great

[@HappiestSadGuy]

They are so close to being Djent!

[@israelhernandezguerra9782]

El principio me recordo a bob esponja en donde calamardo se muda a la villa de los calamardos y se une a un club de clarinetes donde siempre tocan lo mismo x) fuera de eso creo que es algo no digerible para todos, me agrada :D

[@michaelcorrea9261]

Israel Hernandez Guerra jaja que ocurrente! xD Igualmente es cierto, un desafio para quien oye y desea apreciar su arte musical.

[@israelhernandezguerra9782]

jojojo Lo sé, hasta cierto punto me recuerda a la Gran fuga de Beethoveen, saludos :D

[@israelhernandezguerra9782]

Beethoven*

[@NMEATM]

very good group! although the cello players bow hold was bothering me :/

[@FiddlerSteve]

And yet here he is, in a successful young award-winning quartet, when cellists with conventional bow-holds go begging for work. Go figure... ;-)

[@jesse6799]

very nice, but alligator escalator triggered me with the beginning. the screeches, y'know?

[@colinasdelsur]

¿Cual es la prisa?.

[@themcmt3379]

OH FUCK

[@mikewwall]

jamz b killa. mmm

[@WeAreCameron]

people at the office had no seekbar they could use to skip the second piece :(

[@WeAreCameron]

how's unintentional irony working out for you? i'm a broke artist who has given up everything in the pursuit of understanding the integrity of art. i get to decide what i think is pretty and what gives me a fucking headache.

[@MrBarophobe]

I've never been so confident a group of people have adderall addictions before. How do you even practice music like this?

[@VicViper26]

The same way you practice any other type of music.

[@lukashf8440]

it's called hard work dude

[@shantaram56]

;

[@xspager]

No

[@birdyinabox]

Haha I disagree but I like this comment a lot.

[@ElCapitanGames]

it sounds like an orchestra doing whatever the opposite of melodic metal is. and this begs the question. "Is it music if it doesn`t sound good?" and at what point does it become noise?

[@15marsj]

Nonsense Poopypants don't listen to free jazz then. I listened to a free jazz version of We Three Kings that took a ten minute walk down Saxophone Screech Lane. It's still music. It's sorta like that really abstract art. It's supposed to make you think. Sometimes it's self aware, sometimes it comes off as artsy fartsy and pretentious.

[@nanao.292]

By your implications any music that isnt sweet melody isnt music at all, which would exclude as non-music anything outside the European romantic idiom and its vestiges including your melodic metal. Feel free to explore ALL forms of music, from all periods, pre- and post-19 century, and how active work with disharmony extends its possibilities and makes it more interesting

[@gab9690]

Xetaka 1 was great