Sunday Classics: Two chamber concerts, with pleasures stacked in an unexpected direction

At the XIV International Competition for Modern Chamber Music in Kraków, Duo Tandemonos (Ania Górecka and Zosia Konieczna) plays No. 24, Aldo, of Luciano Berio's 34 Duets for two violins, named for the violist Aldo Bennici, who assisted the composer in his search for native folk material. It was the last of six of the duets played by Shmuel Ashkenasi and Arnold Steinhardt on Tuesday night's "Quartet Variations" program by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

by Ken

As I noted in Friday night's preview, this week I attended two unrelated concerts that somehow became connected in my head: an "all-star" program offered by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center featuring a sextet of string players drawn from six different modern-day quartets on Tuesday night, and a joint program by the venerable Fine Arts Quartet (celebrating its 66th anniversary season, though of course not with the same players) and pianist Xiayin Wang in the cozy little off-the-beaten-path Dicapo Opera Theatre on Thursday night.

There were musical satisfactions to be had in both events, and there were good reasons for attending both. But there's not much question in my mind which gave me more musical pleasure, and it seems to me that both those satisfactions and those pleasures are worth a closer look.


In this tiny Amsterdam Radio 4 studio, "our" Fine Arts Quartet -- yes, including the newest-comer, cellist Robert Cohen! -- plays first the opening movement of the Mozart quartet the group played here Thursday night, No. 15 in D minor, K. 421; then (at 5:52) is interviewed by the Dutch announcer; and finally (at 9:19) plays the finale of Haydn's Quartet in D, Op. 64, No. 5.


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