Vienna Concert Hall

A string quartet with cult status

The Kronos Quartet at the Konzerthaus

(Bild: Wiener Konzerthaus / Carlos Suarez)

On its 50th anniversary tour, the US-American Kronos Quartet also earned storms of enthusiasm from the Viennese audience at the Konzerthaus.

Delicate, barely audible frequencies, powerful rhythms, tonal irritations and, time and time again, this blaring, rocking force, electrically amplified, with a few additional instruments and supplemented by recorded vocals and noises - what the four musicians from San Francisco have done with the string quartet form has not only been met with open and curious ears, but has also inspired numerous composers to create new works. Many of them especially for Kronos. They are - also - responses to current events in the world.

Climate change sounds threatening
A small selection was on the program Wednesday evening under the title "Five Decades". For example, "Gold came from the space" by Serbian-born Aleksandra Vrebalov circles in the spheres of outer space with pulsating planetary sounds, spinning beautiful melodies in pizzicato and swelling to enormous fullness. Terry Riley's reference to the jazz avant-gardist Sun Ra addresses the nuclear threat with "Kiss Yo' Ass Goodbye" and the Indonesian composer Peni Candra Rini focuses ravishingly melodic and rhythmic on the threats of climate change in "Ocean-Mountain".

The Kronos Quartet

(Bild: Lenny Gonzalez)

Kronos founder David Harrington and his three companions realize all this with incredible precision, passion and tonal diversity. In Terry Riley's "Lunch in Chinatown", they have a very enjoyable verbal and instrumental conversation about lunch, incorporate Nicole Lizée's rhythmically instructed arguments with telephone surveillance into the performance, stop time in Sofia Gubaidulina's Quartet No 4 with extreme fragility of sound or take you on the hypnotic train rides of the Steve Reich classic "Different Trains" from 1988 - the pounding of the wheels and the squeaking on the rails, the signal whistle and the acceleration.

The first two encores were highly topical with pieces by Valentin Silverstrov from Ukraine and the Palestinian collective Ramallah Underground - each melancholic and melancholy in its own way and yes: there was also Jimi Hendrix. Kronos shredded lustfully and ecstatically through Purple Haze. Exceptional and exceptionally good.