Concert Review: Hey Now, They're the All-Stars

The Brahms piano quartets at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

(L.-R.) James Ehnes, Leif Ove Andsnes, Tabea Zimmerman and Clemens Hagen
play Brahms at this year's Isaac Stern Memorial Concert.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2016 Carnegie Hall.

Putting together a small  group of musicians to play one concert as a chamber ensemble presents considerable challenges, not just to individual talents of the artists involved but to their abilities to make something greater out of the sum of their individual parts. For this year's Isaac Stern Memorial Concert on the great stage of Carnegie Hall, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes assembled an all-star quartet, with violist Tabea Zimmerman, cellist Clemens Hagen and violinist Christian Tetzlaff. The program: a marathon of Johannes Brahms' three Piano Quartets, each massive in scope and capable of standing by itself as a monument to the late Isaac Stern.