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ALLSAR QUARTET
Saturday, April 4, 2009
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
The Allsar Quartet presents a tribute to the composers of the soundtracks of the epic films featured in the exhibition, Reel Religion: A Century of the Bible and Film. Highlights of the program include string quartets by Miklós Rósza, composer of the music to the film, Ben-Hur.

I had never heard of the tiny Museum of Biblical Art, which exists inside the American Bible Society building near Lincoln Center. Thanks to Hank for the tip that led me to discover another of New York's hidden cultural resources.

The building was closed on 4 April (a Saturday), but Gary Swartz and I were tipped off to seek special entry for the upstairs Museum. There some twenty music lovers--how had they heard of this concert?--gathered in one of the exhibition halls to sit in an informal semicircle facing the four chairs reserved for the Allsar Quartet's short program. This consisted of a waltz from Shostakovich's Jazz Suite of 1934, a flowing, lyrical piece by the young New York composer Ljova (who was present to explicate his music), and then Rózsa's Opus 22 Quartet. The four young women made a big sound in the small room. That's something we often forget about chamber music: when played, as intended, in intimate surroundings, such music is by no means always polite and retiring. The Opus 22 quartet, composed immediately after Quo Vadis as a kind palate cleanser, is my favorite of Rózsa's chamber scores: a lean and intensely dramatic piece. As played here in a small room and in stark contrast to a couple of lighter pieces, a really BIG piece of music. The four young women of the Allsar Quartet played with fire and gusto, if not the refinement to be found in the recorded versions of the more Pro Arte and Fleisch Quartets.

Afterward we spoke with the Allsar's violist, Miranda Sielaff. The group is affiliated with the Museum and tries to develop appropriate programming for its various exhibitions. Naturally, it was impossible for them to perform the large-scale music of most biblical films. So the looked around for something practical. Rózsa was the obvious name, and the first quartet-does anybody ever perform the second?-seemed like a good choice, since it came during the period of the biblical scores. We thanked her for programming the work and asked if she knew of the Viola Concerto. Indeed, she did. She said it is becoming well known in viola circles (i.e., with teachers, who will urge the piece upon their students). She even mentioned a recent student performance at Yale that I was sorry to have missed.

Afterward we enjoyed a brief tour of the gallery exhibit, which featured an extensive collection of poster art for biblical films, including quite a few European films that I had never even heard of. The famous, but infrequently seen Fabiola (1949) had some of the finest artwork. Has anybody seen this film? (Music by Enzo Masetti.) Some costumes are also on display. We saw Judah Ben-Hur's Roman party outfit with green cloak, Nina Foch's black gown from The Ten Commandments, scepters and ornaments used by both Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner in that film. The Museum is worth a visit. This exhibition runs into May.