Review: “The Miró Quartet Live!”
By: Donald Rosenberg

The works paired on the Miró Quartet’s new live recording are sonic travelogues by composers with America on their minds.  Dvořák composed his Quartet in F major, Op 96, while in residence in Spillville, Iowa, in 1893, and gave the piece the apt subtitle “American”.  Kevin Puts’s haunting Credo evokes images that inspired the American composer.

Thematic ties aside, both scores share an intense passion for the material at hand.  Dvořák’s quartet, full of folk references, needs treatment that acknowledges the nostalgic gestures without wallowing in sentimentality.  The Miró players give the work a reading of exceptional vibrancy, warmth and nuance.

Equally affecting is Credo, whose five connected movements salute people and locations that have made indelible impressions on Puts.  The opening movement pays tribute to a violin maker in Katonah, NY, from whose studio is conjured ethereal and fervent musings complete with excerpts from famous violin pieces.

As the music paints pictures of bridges in Pittsburgh, Puts builds motoric, overlapping and rhythmic statements suggesting the “Infrastructure” of the second movement’s title.  The propulsive activity, coloured by string harmonics, is interrupted by an intermezzo, “Learning to Dance”, which sings a lovely song of mother and daughter in tender motion.

The message of peace that lies at the heart of the score is embodied in the final “Credo”, an elegy of sublime beauty not far from the traditions of Beethoven and Mahler.  A more committed or detailed performance than the captivating one the Miró give would be hard to imagine.

From the August 2010 edition of Gramophone.