Recipe for Multidimensional Journeying

That was the experience of Christopher Lantz's "The Unplayed String Quartet" at Enthios Art Venue in Eureka Springs on Feb. 8.

Dr. Lantz has had an illustrious musical and artistic career. From his website:

"Christopher Lantz was born in Santa Fe's La Fonda Hotel, where his parents were both artists in residence. As a child he grew up in such varied environs as Santa Fe, Guadalajara, and the streets of New York City. During his unusual childhood, he came in contact with many artists, including the poet Witter Bynner, Frieda Kahlo, and later even made a habit of stopping in for coffee in Jackson Pollock's studio, where he would watch Pollock dripping paint on his famous canvases for hours on end.
However, as a young man, Christopher was more interested in music. Christopher composed his first symphony at the age of 16. This symphony was later performed for Igor Stravinsky when Christopher was 19 and studying under Milton Babbitt. By the time he was 23, he had conducted his own symphonies with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. He currently holds a Doctor of Musical Arts and a Ph.D in acoustical physics from Stanford University."

His "Unplayed String Quartet" was written in 1983 for an ensemble in New York that was not able to play it, he says. The "score" was a painting entitled "String Quartet in D E F." After incorporating pieces of traditional musical score (staves and notes) in earlier works, this work represents one of Lantz's departures into a realm where colors, shapes and placement read to each musician how the score should be played.

The musicians, Fred Mayer on viola, Chris Bradley and Blayne Thiebaud on violins and Melissa Carper on standup bass, come from varied backgrounds and musical traditions. Originally, cellist Ken Sculley was to play a part, but he had to leave town. Melissa was asked to replace him with her standup bass. She took one look at the painting and said, "We can do this, transcribe it an octave up." How did she know that?

The piece was truly amazing as each musician played each section of the painting.

You could see the look of concentration on each musician's face as they interpreted their part in the score while at the same time being mindful of what the other players were doing. Each glissando, each pizzicato, complemented the others. Volume seemed to follow the heaviness of paint, fluidity the brushstrokes. There was room for individual timing and technique, but this was not a piece about solos. "It is itself," Lantz said, "a string quartet." He said firmly: "It is not improvisational, but interpretational."

Fred was clearly "conducting," his self-invented viola/violin dipping in a nod to start each new section. Each section was about a string, with each musician on a specific string in that section. Tempo was dictated by the movement of each eye along the section. "For some this will be seven seconds, for others longer," Lantz noted, pointing to a portion of the painting in his introduction.

At times Blayne laid his head down on his violin ("fiddle" if you're talking about his dancing, dynamic sawing at Mountain Sprout gigs) while playing and seemed to slip into a dream. Fellow Mountain Sprouter Melissa looked thoughtful, bowing her part (she plucks her part at their gigs.) Chris looked distressed at times, almost mournful. Fred was energetic, plucking and bowing.

Of audience members, it required intense listening and setting aside preconceived notions of "music" and "score" and even art. It required getting out of one's own way in order to be in the moment and go with where Lantz and the musicians were taking you.

Later Blayne said, "I understand it, but I think it would take a long time to master it."

If they hadn't mastered it, they came damn close: while the musicians played the finally "unplayed" string quartet, Christopher Lantz sat in the audience, weeping.

This was something extraordinary, something you don't see or hear every day. Thanks to Deerwomon for bringing Christopher Lantz here to share this work with us and thanks to our local musicians who took this on and took us all on an amazing journey with them.