Maurice Ohana
Complete works for
string quartet

Quartet nr1
Polyphoie
Monodie
Déchant
Hymne

Quartet nr2
Sagittaire
Mood
Alborada
Faran-Ngô

Quartet nr3
Sorgin-Ngô

The Psophos Quartet

CD AR RE-SE 2004-7

Maurice Ohana
Complete works for
string quartet

The Psophos Quartet *

"Records of the week"
November 18, 2004
Christian Merlin and Bertrand Dicale

British citizen born in Casablanca of Spanish parents, Frenchman Maurice Ohana (1913-1992) was one of the most important composers of the second half of the 20th century, but is he genuinely recognised at his true value? Combining the refinement of a Debussy air with the dissonance of Arab-Andalusian music, his writing found its fulfilment in the voice and the piano, of which this student of Lazare Lévy at the Paris Conservatoire was a virtuoso. But his music of such poetic wealth also achieved particular expression in his three relatively unknown Quartets which are discovered here, magnificently upheld by the four young women of the Psophos Quartet.

Beginning as a piano prodigy (he even accompanied La Argentina!), Maurice Ohana got into composing through the teaching of Daniel-Lesur as well as the sponsorship of Dutilieux. A stubborn partisan of dissonance to the end, he belongs to the individualist, modernist wing of antiserial reactionaries. […] An item that rounds out this portrait of Ohana is the new recording of his three string quartets by the young women of the renowned Quator Psophos – collected, lyrical pieces that intensify a language that is still classic.

The string quartets of Maurice Ohana are not easily accessible works. The music is demanding and complex; one must give it time to reveal its secrets and unfold, like cities whose beauties are born out of shadows.
There is, manifestly, a mystery to be probed, and one that neither the structure nor the language used by the composer can be used to penetrate. Rather, we must let ourselves go with the music and allow it to invoke images for us, in order to taste it.
Because there is plenty to say. First of all, precisely because this music plays on our imaginations, as if it were using sounds to build a world that is almost palpable. And because it often spreads out like a travelling shot over some still landscape, enlivened only by sudden bursts of blinding sunlight here and there.
This is to say, of course, that there is a feel of cinematography to this way of formulating a work – like a movie that is practically without narration, made with only the bare essentials: images and editing. The succession of views, cross-dissolves, and poetic images takes the place of reality. And all of this can be found in Ohana’s work, which has now been magnified through the spotless performance of the Quator Psophos.

The Quator Psophos, founded in 1997, has won several international awards. With these four musicians – Ayako Tanaka, Bleuenn Le Maître (violin), Cécile Grassi (alto) and Ingrid Schönlaub (cello) – the Maurice Ohana quartets have found interpreters who love contemporary music. The author of the liner notes, Stéphane Goldet, writes, “Every composer today knows that by writing a string quartet, he is following a path carved out by Haydn and Beethoven. More precisely, it is not a path of tradition so much as a path that demands invention.”
Nothing could better describe Ohana, a musician who undertook the quartet form only to meld it with a fiercely personal world that cries out for a certain archaic stance, as a necessity rather than an indulgence, because it ties in with an essential landscape that is closer to the world as it was created than to our civilized lands.
The Premier Quator is the definitive version of Cinq Séquences, composed in 1963, with the third of these five sequences (Tympanum) omitted. The titles (Polyphonie, Monodie, Déchant, Hymne) are all references to medieval music. The third tones add a colour that conveys one of Ohana’s particular sensibilities.
The Deuxième Quator, composed in 1980, is more secretive as well as more passionate. Goldet describes the second movement (Mood) as being, “as grey as the light between dog and wolf”. The fourth movement, Faran-Ngô, alludes to incantatory dances with African roots. The Troisième Quator, with a single movement, offers in its second track, Sorgin-Ngô, a reprise of the theme announced in the fourth part of the Deuxième Quator. For Maurice Ohana, African and Andalusian music are closely intertwined, reminding us that the continents are only separated by a narrow band of sea. As always with Ohana, it is this underlying passion and this controlled power that confer a kind of tension to his music that performers must strive to deliver without making any concessions, as in this case. The beautiful sonorities of the Quator Psophos, with precision attacks, clear third tones and the climate these musicians have consciously created, are transmitted to us through a recording that is exceptionally clear.

There are four young and beautiful members in Quator Psophos, a chamber music quartet that is increasingly in demand. Ayako, who is Japanese, Bleuenn, Cécile and Ingrid all met at the Lyon Conservatory and decided to stay together from then on. And it’s a good thing because, by the end of three years, they had won the first prize at the international competition for string quartets in Bordeaux. “After that, everything happened very fast, because the festival directors have advance commitments to programme the musicians who win prizes.” Since then, they have acquired an agent and have been shining at the biggest festivals as well as venturing into performances of contemporary works. In particular, this includes the works of Maurice Ohana, with the release of a recording by Ar-Re-Se, a new label distributed by Codaex.

Février 2005
Antoine Mignon

Just like the Three Musketeers, the Three Graces are in fact four and they make up the Psophos quartet. These outstanding ladies offer a recording that would and will make the most unwilling love contemporary music: "You don't like contemporary music? You haven't heard the Psophos quartet performing Maurice Ohana's quartets!" It should be added that Maurice Ohana is an atypical composer with a personal language that frees itself of all aesthetic, stylistic schools of thought, most notably the German dodecaphonic school. Utterly poetic, Ohana privileges a subtle and rigorous writing – invoking the plainsong in his First Quartet – with a Mediterranean lyricism (notably Andalusian and African in the Second and Third Quartets), centering his work on timbre -- hence the use of third tones and a modern playing of string instruments (harmonics, bow sticks, slapped pizzicati, etc.). Ohana completely changes the way quartets are written, adapting it to his language and freeing it from the traditional polyphonic style.
Nothing is missing from this recording, especially not the precision of the ensemble and the remarkable homogeneity of sound. Their energy results in a very sure and tense bow, ideal for "those sharp, characteristic contrast -- sff-pp -- that are Ohana’s signature throughout his works”, as the liner notes say. From this energy, even in the most abrupt cuts, a most beautiful sound emerges, far from the interpretations that one finds too often in this repertoire. As for the accuracy, even the third tones sound with perfect precision. The harmonic encounters take place without the slightest hesitation. With a disconcerting facility the four musicians seem completely at home with this music that requires all "modern" string instrument techniques, investing it with a rare commitment and pleasure. Endowed with an overflowing expressive palette, an incredible variety of vibratos, a wonderful sound but also much more intimate when necessary, these young women know how to do everything. With an extraordinary authority, they perfectly render the structure of the Quartets, so that the listener is never lost, although the music is far from easy. And it is precisely this ease they impress into the music that seduces us. Every moment is inspired and placed in the context of the works, whose different movements are marvelously unified. Thanks to the incredible subtlety and the amazing technical and tonal perfection, one falls into an admirative state of religious meditation while listening to this work, which is particularly rare, especially in such a repertoire, and one only hopes for one thing: that it should last. Full of feeling, intensely lived, perfectly rendered, all this is beautiful, because the Psophos Quartet never forgets the aesthetic aspect, which is usually neglected. Yes, it is modern, and beautiful!
So, our Four Graces have performed the feat to become a long-lasting reference in these works and to secure a prominent place in the closed circle of the young French quartets. Let us hope that the Psophos Quartet will confirm this later on in a more traditional repertoire, as their first Mendelssohn recording for Zig-Zag Territoires foreshadows.

February 2005
Nicolas Baron

This is, as far as we know, the only recorded version of the three Quartets by Maurice Ohana. The first of them, although it is called Five Sequences (1963), is performed here without the central Tympanum, which the Psophos Quartet decided to skip, in accordance with the composer’s own wish (this movement is expected to appear in the version that the Danel Quartet plans to record for Timpani). Polyphony, Monody, Descant, Hymn: the titles suggest the variety of the techniques that are used, as well as a reference to medieval vocal music. Written in an austere, rough-shaped language, that has the dryness of a vine stock, this work is irrigated with a welcome sap (Monody) which sets the tormented Hymn on fire. In the Second Quartet (1980) the ritualistic language is broadened to the dimensions of Andalusian cante jondo and of Negro spirituals. A very epidermic Sagittarius foreshadows the cabalistic jerks of Alborada before the wonderful last movement, Faran-Ngô, whose orchestral version is known as Crypt (1980). The Psophos affirm with the same conviction the telluric might of the Third Quartet, Sorgin-Ngô (1989), whose metric tail treads on chalk and ochre. The young French Quartet, whose performance was being awaited, takes over this music with a feverish meticulousness, combining plenitude of sound and driving energy, iron bow and velvet hair.

Created in 1997 at the Lyon National Conservatory, the award-winning Psophos Quartet (Psophos being Greek for "musical sound") have earned in particular a First Grand Prize at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Contest in September 2001. They have since been invited to the greatest concert halls and festivals worldwide (Amsterdam Concertgebouw, London Wigmore Hall, The Folles Journées de Nantes, The Brussels Palais des Beaux-Arts…), sharing their passion for chamber music with numerous French soloists (Jean-Claude Pennetier, Alain Meunier, Frank Braley…).
This CD, the first recording by the Psophos Quartet, which features the complete Quartets by Maurice Ohana and has earned the Maurice Ohana and the Mécénat Musical Société générale Awards, is a clear witness to the curiosity and inventiveness of this fully feminine ensemble, a peculiarity worth noticing. There is nothing traditional in the universe of these three Quartets, which go radically against the German heritage and the law of counterpoint towards the personal musical world of the composer. The refined timbres, the echo of African rhythms and instruments which exert a fascination on Ohana, the extreme diversity of textures that can be either fluid or compact, homogenous or scattered all nurture the lines of his quartets, as well as his vocal music or his piano works. Fully involved in the search for colors and specific textures that require very diverse ways of playing, the Psophos Quartet displays a perfect mastery of third-tone inflexions, which Ohana particularly likes, and truly tends to become a sound generator, shaping an ever-changing sonorous object.
The titles of the four movements of the First Quartet allude to four kinds of writing -- Polyphony, Monody, Descant and Hymn -- which trace back to remotely evoked medieval roots. The final Hymn features a homophonous and vertical writing for the four interpreters which requires, as in Messiaen’s works, a perfect synchronization in gestures and energies on the part of the quartet, whose qualities of sound and richness in the timbre palette can be fully enjoyed here. The Second Quartet is even stranger and more mysterious in its musical itinerary, showing different universes in each of the four movements -- Sagittarius, Mood, Alborada, Faran-Ngô. Sagittarius: contrast between the elasticity and smoothness of the sound path on the one hand and the rockier work done on some more tormented surfaces on the other. In Mood, the deep pizzicati of the flat strings evoke the mysterious echo of hide percussions perturbing the calm of big instrumental layers. A luminous vibration pervades Alborada, irradiating the sonorous matter, whereas Faran-Ngô seems to sum up in its uneven terrain the extreme diversity of the instrumental playing that is deployed in the whole score. The Third Quartet, Sorgin-Ngô, written in one stretch, is structured on the contrast between languor and irruption, murmur and clamor. After almost savagely pulsed episodes come tender, sensual stretches of pure and sonorous poetry. With an energy and a sound potential that serve musical inventiveness, the Psophos Quartet takes us into these mysterious faraway lands and these dreamlike landscapes, displaying a total artistic commitment in order to reach the essence of a sonorous poetics that is always flirting with emotion.
This superb recording completes Ohana’s discography and coincides with the imminent release of a now essential monograph about the composer written by Edith Canat de Chizy and François Porcille and published by Fayard.

La Libre Essentielle
March 2005

Demanding and Free
We found out about the Psophos Quartet some time ago when they were playing a Mendelssohn repertoire and boy (or should I write “girl”!), did these four young women make a big impression… And today, to our great pleasure, we have the confirmation of Ayako Tanaka’s and her accomplices’ talent in a universe that may not be misogynous but remains rather masculine. The Psophos have had the great idea of recording the complete Quartets by Maurice Ohana, that great enchanter and diviner. And while offering what will be for many listeners a magnificent discovery, the Psophos Quartet also provide us with an opportunity to remind one and all that the musician’s creed has not lost one ounce of its relevance. More than ever, we have to “defend the liberty of the musical language against all aesthetic tyrannies”. The softest are not the least dangerous…

ClassicsToday France
Jacques Bonnaure

That Maurice Ohana (1914-1992) wrote quartets may come as a surprise, especially since he was not commissioned to do so. Indeed, this genre is mainly associated with the German and Austrian musical tradition that the composer kept at a distance. Ohana uses the quartet as an instrumental formation and as a writing technique, in order to deepen certain aspects of his discourse and his aesthetics.
The First Quartet dates back to 1963 – the same year the Tombeau de Claude Debussy was composed. It was originally divided in five parts, but Ohana scrapped the central section (Tympanum) and it is somewhat regrettable that the interpreters did not reintroduce it in this version. Every movement is a reference to medieval writing techniques (Polyphony-Monody-Dechant-Hymn). Third tones are abundantly used in this work, giving it its rugged, original and archaic character. Ohana’s particular taste for the non-classical musical traditions is also present in the Second Quartet (1980), which hints at the “cante jondo” and to African music, be it under its original shape or under the shape of Gospel music. The last Quartet, Sorgin-Ngô (1989), is made up of a single, well-rounded 24-minute movement and was composed at the same time as the opera La Célestine. It is dominated by complex rhythms, massive-sounding effects and everything that implies harshness and mineral hardness.
It is hard to underestimate the interest of this release that gives access to three hitherto little known masterpieces of contemporary music. This CD is also the first commercial recording by the Psophos Quartet, an exclusively feminine quartet born in 1997 and already well-known. For its four young members, it was no small feat to start with these not so renowned and very demanding works and this recording is a success. The instrumental qualities of the musicians are extraordinary: they are always right on key (particularly with the third tones !) and at ease in the variety of musical colors or the powerful rhythm and volume effects of the Third Quartet. The revelation of three masterpieces therefore comes with the revelation of a great string quartet. What’s next?

American Record Guide
Lehman

Listeners unfamiliar with Maurice Ohana (1914-1992), a composer of mixed heritage – British citizen born in North Africa of Spanish parents, studied in Rome, finally settled in Paris – should read Lindsay Koob’s informative review of his choral music (Sept-Oct 2004). As Koob points out, Ohana was one of a kind: "a lonely phenomenon – a small (around 50 works) but important musical movement of sorts unto himself".
Ohana was fascinated by exotic and primitive music and tried to evolve a kind of modern recreation of it using avant-garde devices. The result is dense but vibrant, austere but sensuous, impressionist but abstract, oblique but striking, new but ancient. There are kinships with Bartok, with Berg, and more clearly with the extatic, visionary music of Messiaen and Dutilleux – but Ohana is fiercer, more rugged. Like the harsh landscapes that it evokes, his music is never pretty but it can be achingly beautiful. As Koob says, "It demands patience, concentration, and repeated listening".
To be honest I’ve never enjoyed Ohana’s music until now. It just seemed too forbidding and too formless. To my surprise, however, I was quickly drawn into these quartets. The intricate textures and unusual string devices – unsynchronized pizzicatos, glissandos, and harmonics, rattling col legnos, microtonal clusters, keening and florid recitatives, off-center ostinatos, and so on – seem absolutely integral to the music argument rather than superficial, attention-getting decoration. The music has rock-solid integrity and a "rightness" and logic that, however unconventional, make sense right from the beginning. And it simply burns with an expressive fervor that recalls Bloch at his most intense (for example, his coruscating Violin Sonata). The Psophos Quartet play like they’re possessed, and their white-hot intensity and superb ensemble are wonderfully captured in Ar Ré-Sé’s holographic recorded sound.
This isn’t for the faint of heart, but adventurous ears will find it richly rewarding. I hope the Psophos Quartet will continue to explore this sort of neglected repertoire. There are fine quartets by Barraud, by Nikiprowetsky, and by modern composers in the French tradition that I’d love to hear them play.