12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘The Hemphill Stringtet Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill' Review: Bowing Before Genius
A cellist bows a short melody that sounds like a question. Her string-quartet mates answer with brief, harmonized phrases. Now they bow together, their harmonies expanding and contracting, with long and short tones in speech-like rhythmic patterns. Soon, the cellist returns to that opening melody, this time plucked. The four players improvise, at first collectively, much like a New Orleans brass band, then one at a time, with wild abandon in spots, the violins reaching high-arched harmonics, the cellist down low, moving like a jazz bassist. Finally, back to those harmonized phrases, this time yet more resolute.
'Revue,' which opens 'The Hemphill Stringtet Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill' (Out of Your Head, available now), showcases the talents of this group's members. Violinist Sam Bardfeld, an especially sensitive player, has reach enough to play alongside creative-music pioneer Anthony Braxton, salsa hero Willie Colón and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Bruce Springsteen. The distinctive visions of violinist Curtis Stewart, a member of PUBLIQuartet, and violist Stephanie Griffin, founder of the Momenta Quartet, have enriched chamber music's aesthetic and canon. Cellist Tomeka Reid, a MacArthur Foundation grantee who leads her own jazz quartet and a 17-piece improvising chamber orchestra, has revolutionized the role of her instrument in contemporary music.
