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.

Concert Review: The Rest of This Concert Will Be in Polish

The Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra returns to New York.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Dress casual: Jacek Kaspszyk (center) rehearses the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra
at Alice Tully Hal. Photo courtesy the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra.

It is a rare treat to hear the Orkiestra Filharmonii Narodowej (Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra) on a concert stage in New York. On Monday night, this Polish orchestra played at Alice Tully Hall under the baton of current music director Jacek Kaspszyk. Although not well known in this country, the WNPO has a long history, having been founded in their home city in 1901. This was the ensemble's first visit to the city since 2008, offering a program featuring works by Johannes Brahms, Frederic Chopin and Mieczysław Weinberg.

Concert Review: Brothers From the Same Quartet

The Emerson String Quartet celebrates forty years.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The members of the Emerson String Quartet, past and present: Philip Setzer, Paul Watkins
former cellist David Finckel, Eugene Drucker, Lawrence Dutton.
Original photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco, © Sony Classical. Photoshop by the author.

The Emerson String Quartet is among the most storied of American Chamber music ensembles, having thrilled listeners for four decades with their clean, bright-edged sound and a preference for brisk and efficient music making. On Sunday afternoon, the Emersons played the second of two concerts at Alice Tully Hall this weekend. The occasion: to celebrate the beginning of the 2016-17 season of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and to celebrate four decades of music-making with the release of a mammoth 53-disc box chronicling the ensembles' complete recorded catalogue for Deutsche Grammophon.

Opera Review: The Brontë Theorem

The Center for Contemporary Opera unveils Jane Eyre.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

It's up to the woman upstairs: Jennifer Zetlan as Jane Eyre. 
Photo by Steven Pisano © 2016 Steven Pisano Photography, courtesy CCO.

One of the best things about the new operatic adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is that it doesn't tell the whole story. Written by composer Louis Karchin, this opera is at once a retelling of the celebrated novel and something of a throwback to the way opera were written a century ago. The show was mounted in a handsome production at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, as the big-budget centerpiece of the current festival season of the Center for Contemporary Opera. The libretto (by Diane Osin begins the tale in Part III of the novel, with Jane (Jennifer Zetlan) already situated as a governess at Thornfield, the vast and spooky house owned by Edward Rochester (Ryan MacPherson.).