Concert Review: The Antic Disposition

The Danish String Quartet play Beethoven.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The members f the Danish String Quartet and their latest construction project.
Photo courtesy Kirshbaum Associates. 

Each summer, the Mostly Mozart Festival is dominated by the main stage orchestra offerings at David Geffen Hall. On Thursday evening, however, the ears of its audience were attuned to chamber music. This concert at Alice Tully Hall featured two of the great string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven, as played by that excellent and fast-rising ensemble, the Danish String Quartet. 

Concert Review: Famous Last Words

The Danish String Quartet at Zankel Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Layabouts: the Danish String Quartet defy gravity. Photo © ECM Records.

The last utterance by a major composer is not always profound. But in the case of Dmitri Shostakovich and Franz Schubert, their final works are pinnacles of the chamber music repertory. Both of these valedictory compositions were programmed for Wednesday night's concert by the Danish String Quartet, who brought their clean-limbed, slightly astringent approach to chamber music to Carnegie Hall's subterranean Zankel Hall.