Chamber Music

The Cypress String Quartet’s Beethoven Farewell

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After 20 years, the San Francisco-based Cypress String Quartet disbanded earlier this summer. The group’s legacy includes 30 newly commissioned works by composers such as George Tsontakis, Jennifer Higdon, and Kevin Puts and 17 recordings. In terms of its discography, the Cypress’ crowning achievement came in May with the release of the complete Beethoven string quartets. A detailed exploration of the Beethoven quartets was one of the Cypress’ central objectives from day one. Beethoven’s string …

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A Ravel Snapshot with the Lydian String Quartet

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The Boston-based Lydian String Quartet has a new first violinist. Andrea Segar recently succeeded Daniel Stepner, who served as the Quartet’s first violinist for 29 years. Segar was a student of Donald Weilerstein (former first violinist of the Cleveland Quartet) at New England Conservatory, and Philip Setzer (a founding member of the Emerson String Quartet) and Soovin Kim at SUNY Stony Brook. Last week, the Lydian Quartet posted this informal rehearsal clip featuring the …

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Jennifer Higdon: Summer Shimmers Across the Glass of Green Ponds

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Here’s the perfect soundtrack for a lazy midsummer afternoon- the kind of music you might hear in a dream if you fell asleep in the backyard under a cool, lush, leafy canopy. Scenes from the Poet’s Dreams, a work for piano quintet written in 1999 by American composer Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962), imagines a series of divergent dreams. The dreamer becomes both a participant and observer, a paradox Higdon likens to the …

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Beethoven’s Wordless Recitatives

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Ludwig van Beethoven may not be the first composer who comes to mind when considering recitative- the sung dialogue that links arias and other musical numbers in an opera or oratorio. Beethoven wrote only one opera, Fidelio, which uses more spoken dialogue than recitative. He spent almost ten excruciating years revising the work, writing four different overtures, and enduring harsh criticism, until finding success with the final 1814 version. So it’s interesting that operatic …

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Oistrakh Plays Brahms

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Here is a soulful performance of Johannes Brahms’ final violin sonata, the Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108. This classic live concert performance was taken from a March 18, 1970 recital at New York’s Alice Tully Hall featuring the legendary Soviet violinist David Oistrakh and pianist Sviatoslav Richter. The audio quality is less than perfect and the camera angle frequently provides the page turner’s perspective. Yet Oistrakh’s sumptuous, golden tone and noble …

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Composers on Holiday: Five Pieces Written on Summer Vacation

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Summer is here. For professional orchestral musicians, that means a brief respite from the weekly routine of the main concert season. Soon it will be time for summer seasons and music festivals, many featuring outdoor concerts in such idyllic locations as Chautauqua, Vail, and the Tetons. Summer has typically been a productive time for composers. Gustav Mahler, one of the most prominent conductors of his time, retreated to isolated rural settings in …

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The Ébène Quartet Plays Fauré

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Listen to the opening of Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Quintet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 89 and you might get the sensation of floating. It’s the musical equivalent of an out-of-body experience. This is a piece which seems to start somewhere up in the clouds, with sparkling, lighter-than-air piano arpeggios ushering in an expansive but intimate melody. You might be reminded of the childlike innocence of the In Paradisum from Fauré’s Requiem, which was written around the same time …

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