LaFave Quartet Premiered  By Richard Nilsen; for Musical America
 
November 5, 2003 - Kenneth LaFave's first string quartet was premiered Monday at the Sun Cities Chamber Music Society concert by the Chicago String Quartet.
 
LaFave's piece, titled "Transformations," was commissioned by the chamber music society. 
 
The quartet also played Beethoven's second Razoumovsky and the Dvorak American.
 
"Transformations" is a 23-minute, 5 movement quartet in which each movement maintains a distinct character while never seeming out of place in the style of the whole.
 
The movements each use one of the classical forms: the first is a sonata, the second a theme and variations, the third a scherzo -- and this time with a real joke in it -- the fourth a Lento and the finale a fugue.
 
But none is a simple version of its form. The fugue does not, for instance, offer its entries at the fifth, but at various steps of the scale. It is a jaunty fugue with a them that is part jig, part chromatic descending line. The Scherzo is a play on the Circle of Fifths, and the joke is how to get off this infinite progressions of tonalities. LaFave actually raises a chuckle with his solution.
 
But the prize of the quartet is the theme and variations, a beautiful melody that might very well be a candidate for a "greatest hits" album. It has something of the gentle swagger of Gershwin's "Lullaby" for quartet, but with a modal feel. It's distinctly memorable chord progressions make following the variations a snap, but the progressions are exceptionally expressive. 
 
One can imagine this movement finding a life of its own, away from the quartet as a whole.
 
LaFave's voice shows through the whole quartet. It shares the tonal vocabulary of its time -- a time when tonality has had a resurrection -- but never seems derivative. At no point does the listener think: "I've heard that before."
 
This is the highest praise I can give a new piece of music.
 
There are tons of new pieces written every year, by gifted and less-than-gifted composers. Most disappear down the rabbit-hole of oblivion.
 
That would be a shame for "Transformations." 
 
One would hope, not only that the fine Chicago String Quartet would actually add it to its repertoire, but that other quartets might pick it up, too. The kind of grace and charm LaFave brings to the genre deserves to be more widely appreciated. 

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