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The Wondrous Diversity of Peace New York
isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall
10/17/2025 -
José White Lafitte: La bella cubana
Clarice Assad: from Impressions: 4. “Precision: Perpetual Motion”
Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 7, Op. 83 (arr. Rubén Rengel)
Quenton Xavier Blache: Visions of Peace
William Grant Still: Suite for Violin and Piano (arr. Randall Goosby)
Alberto Ginastera: from Concerto for Strings, Op. 33: 4. “Finale furioso”
Sterling Elliott (Cellist)
Sphinx Virtuosi
Sphinx Virtuosi (© Scott Jackson)
“Music of our time is granted little opportunity for glorification or flooding people with illumination. The flames of Hiroshima have gone beyond all that.”
Hans Werner Henze
“... with an eye made quiet by the power/
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,/
We see into the life of things.”
William Wordsworth, Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey
The title “Sphinx Virtuosi” is as deceiving as the Egyptian monster himself. Nothing is enigmatic or puzzling or riddle‑like about these 18 string players. Tonight, after six rare pieces lasting just over an hour, the effects of these youngish players working without a conductor was simply radiant.
Sphinx Virtuosi are heading onto three decades, and their international reputation, recordings and purposes are beyond compare. The 18 are recruited from top orchestras, chamber groups and conservatories. Thus, the diversity of origin gives them an enthusiasm as great as their virtuosity.
Tonight’s concert embraced three centuries and as many continents. They were short, pithy (only one work was in the low two digits), and either new or with unlikely arrangements.
Who would possibly imagine the final Precipitato movement from the 7th Sonata arranged for string orchestra? Composer Rubén Rengel did the impossible, with a fiddling tour de force.
Admittedly, no amount of string playing could reproduce the percussive piano. But if the arrangement inevitably eschewed the violence, we had four minutes of buzzing playing.
The three‑minute Violin and Piano suite by William Grant Still was given further transcription. Now it was a suite for cello and string orchestra, with soloist Sterling Elliott doing the solo honors.
In this case, we really did need a full string orchestra, for two movements danced with unfettered glee. The long second movement, “Mother and Child”, gave Mr. Elliott the chance to leave his fine balletic movements for a soulful, dark, deep though never mawkish picture. He is a splendid soloist, and I want to hear him in a more substantial work.
S. Elliott/J. White Lafitte (© Courtesy of the Artist)
The two opening works were both from Latin America, and both different. Brazilian dancer, composer, pianist, jazz, classical and scat singer, multi‑Grammy winner Clarice Assad was represented by a single section of her Impressions. Her “Precision. Perpetual Motion” was exactly that. Violins and violas moved in perpetual motion. Cellos and basses offered themes and motifs. And within a mere four minutes, both coalesced with a grand climax.
The 19th-century Cuban-born, Paris Conservatory-educated violin virtuoso, conductor and composer José White Lafitte was apparently quite prolific in his 80‑odd years, though the name was new to me. This four‑minute Beautiful Cuban Woman, originally for two violins and piano, was transcribed here with a variety of sections. From a moody start to a habanara and back again, it could have been composed by Gottschalk, yet this had the subjective élan which the American rarely offered.
A third Latin American contribution was another dazzling work, Alberto Ginastera’s Finale Furioso from his String Concerto, As expected, the concert finished with musical flames.
But wait! We come to the concert’s name, Visions of Peace, with its eponymous work by Quenton Xavier Blache. It was by far the most complex work, its eight minutes more valuable to this listener as all the other gems. The start is a plaintive violin song. Yet through an organic blossoming, the song slowly subtly becomes a prayer with a Bach‑like contrapuntal anthem, a climax and an “Amen” style finale.
Mr. Blache prefaced Visions of Peace with Confucius’ “Study the past if you would define the future.”
The past is rarely that of peace (perhaps ancient Crete is the only example), but music of such diversity offers at least momentary embrace.
Harry Rolnick
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