And the Spektral Quartet’s new double album, “Experiments in Living,” juxtaposes works from the Germanic canon with newer, more experimental pieces — including the fully improvised “Spinals,” which the group conceived with the improvising vocalist Charmaine Lee, taking two weekends to train in Ms. Lee’s improvisational practice.
“We wanted Brahms on there; we wanted Schoenberg,” the violinist Maeve Feinberg said. “We just kind of liked the idea of the whole range there. And trying to make the statement that Brahms could exist in the same place as something being improvised in the moment.” (The album also includes a fully notated George Lewis work.)
Ms. Lee said in an email that while two weeks wasn’t enough time to fully ground the Spektral players in her style, the resulting piece succeeded in achieving “an honest engagement and representation of my practice.” She added that she was grateful to the quartet for its openness toward improvisers. Mx. Feinberg said that it was important to the group, as novices at improvisation, to do its best to learn Ms. Lee’s particular approach.
“If you’re going to try to do the thing and step out, you also don’t want to slight this tradition,” Mx. Feinberg said. “The worst thing I could imagine is sort of putting it on a bigger stage and doing it a disservice.”
That may have been what Bernstein inadvertently did in 1964. But with the New York Philharmonic committing to increasing its diversity of offerings over “a lengthy process,” there is yet time for the orchestra — and others like it — to catch up and branch out.