Peter Ré’s musical career spans more than 60 years, from his early studies with Hindemith to his 33-year career at Colby College in Maine and music directorship of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. Although his three string quartets respectively date from 1957, 1968, and 1987, they’re generally cut from the same stylistic cloth. There are traces of Hindemithian pan-tonality and contrapuntal rigor, yet the essence of Ré’s expressive vocabulary lies within his neo-classical harmonic language, sensuous, lush textures, and long-lined lyrical generosity. Each work contains three short movements that are ideally proportioned and say exactly what they need to say.
Although the Portland Quartet’s intonation is too erratic for comfort in the first two works, the players are absolutely secure with the more difficult Third quartet’s frequent ponticello passages, rapid-fire pizzicatos, and asymmetrical double-stops. Here and throughout the disc the recording quality is a shade too reverberant and soft-edged.
As with the quartets, the Divertimento for Piano Trio (1976) is beautifully and idiomatically crafted, with lots of playful canonic sequences, soft trills, and attractive sustained unison string lines. Also note the opening theme’s uncanny resemblance to Bartók’s first-movement theme in his Concerto for Orchestra–a coincidence? Although the Beachum, Poliacik, and Tschanz trio may not play with consistent polish (the sourly dispatched solo cello passages in the Andante, for example), their commitment to Ré’s vision is never in doubt. I hope this disc will inspire world-class ensembles to take up Peter Ré’s cause. He deserves it.
