By Daniel Buckwalter
A cold winter morning, a hot cup of coffee, and the only sound is the pitter-patter of cat feet chasing down toys on hardwood floors.
I bring up this moment of morning bliss because on Feb. 4 it was revealed to me and an audience at Christian Science Church in Eugene that Ludgwig van Beethoven was an avid coffee drinker, perhaps a coffeeholic.
All the more reason, I say, to love the man’s music.
The occasion was Delgani String Quartet’s Beethoven Reimagined program that completed a stirring two-performance run in Eugene and now plays Feb. 7 in Corvallis, Feb. 8 in Portland and Feb. 9 in Salem.
It is a program of vignettes — short works by Northwest composers from the cooperative Cascadia Composers that add musical twists to Beethoven the man — followed by Delgani’s interpretation of Beethoven’s wildly challenging and engrossing String Quartet No. 13 in B flat Major.
Violinists Anthea Kreston and Jannie Wei, cellist Eric Alterman and guest violist Arnaud Ghillebaert (a late substitute for Kayla Cabrera) will take audience members of their road performances through the light-hearted and the weighty. It’s absorbing and will add warmth to the icy evenings.
Nicholas Yandell (The Ascent), Bill Whitley (Afterimage), Theresa Koon (The Rage of Lost Innocence) and Adam Eason (Coffee Bowl Scherzo (“a caffeinated piece” said Alterman, and my favorite) were the short works performed.
As for Beethoven’s six-movement String Quartet No. 13 — “a bucket-list piece for string quartets,” Alterman said — Eugene audiences got a 45-minute roller coaster ride, especially in the fifth and sixth movements when light bouncy moments clashed with intensely fierce phrasing. It looked and felt athletically exhausting for the quartet.
“It’s a privilege to be inside it,” Kreston noted before Delgani played the piece, and it was a privilege for Eugene audiences to be along for the trip.
