Concert Review: The Answers Lie Within

The Chamber Music Society kicks off its Russian Panorama festival.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Like these Matroyshka dolls, Russian musical tradition has a complicated history.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is on a mission this month: to explore the vast and mostly ignored field of Russian music beyond the "big names." True, the chamber works of Tchaikovsky and the quartets of Shostakovich are repertory staples, but Sunday's concert at Alice Tully Hall was dedicated (with one notable exception) to composers whose catalogues are new to Western ears.

Concert Review: Inspiration, Persperation and Adaptation

The Chamber Music Society offers a series of "farewell" works.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Seven from twenty-three: the musicians of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
play Strauss' Metamorphosen. Photo by Tristan Cook for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Even the best music is often borrowed from somewhere else. Composers throughout history often draw their melodic inspiration from somewhere else, be it folk song, a medieval church mode or in some cases, other composers. It is always a moment of minor joy when one first hears a most memorable musical idea. Chagrin follows when one figures out the source material, or realizes where a thematic idea has been re-used.

Concert Review: Outside it May Be Raining...

Beating the heat with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Partners at work: David Finckel and Wu Han.
Photo from the artists' website.

Most summer music festivals take place under hot tents or purpose-built structures open to the elements. Neither are conducive to good music-making, although the combination of grassy swards, majestic trees and a good bottle of cab. franc makes up for any unpleasantness. The Chamber Music Society's summer series, which gave the second of three concerts on Wednesday night, offers a comfortable alternative: the air-conditioned acoustic excellence of Alice Tully Hall.

Spring Breakdown 2016: Chamber Music

Great music with an accent on the intimate.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Attacca Quartet goes underground
Photo by Andrew Ousley.

Sometimes music is best in small groups. With that in mind, Superconductor looks at intimate performances by three or more players, some of which were in decidedly unusual locations, like a crypt deep under a Harlem church, the upper level of a YMHA, or even...Carnegie Hall. Here's the best of chamber music from the spring of 2016.

Concert Review: Are You Ready For the Summer?

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center wraps its spring season.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Next to big companies like the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet and New York Philharmonic, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center sometimes gets overlooked. Each year, this gathering of top-flight musicians assembles a series of concert programs devoted to little more than celebrating the beauties of works written for smaller groups of musicians, usually ranging from duo to octet. On Tuesday night, the CMS musicians gathered for the last concert of the spring 2016 season, a program of Richard Strauss, Brahms and Dvorak that explored very different periods of each composer's career.

Concert Review: The Slow Journey Into Silence

The Jerusalem String Quartet plays Beethoven.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Jerusalem String Quartet: Alexander Pavlovsky, Sergei Bresler, Kyril Zlotnitov and
Ori Kam. Photo © 2015 harmonia mundi usa.

This week, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center embarked on a six-concert survey of the complete string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven. It fell to the Jerusalem String Quartet to open the cycle with the six works of Op. 18 over two nights. Tuesday night's concert at Alice Tully Hall featured the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Quartets, key works in examining Beethoven's transition from able craftsman to an inspired, heroic figure.

Season Preview: The Prodigy Returns

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center focuses 2016-17 on Mendelssohn.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Two sides of Felix Mendelssohn: as child prodigy and man.
His music is at the center of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's
programming for the 2016-17 season. 

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center has announced its schedule for 2016-17, an ambitious slate focused on the life and artistry of one of the most important but under appreciated composers of the 19th century: Felix Mendelssohn. A pianist at the age of six, Mendelssohn became one of the most noted composers in Europe with his incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, published when its creator was just 19.