by Daniel Hathaway
The Tokyo String Quartet stunned its many fans when it announced its intention to leave the concert circuit in July of 2013, after deciding not to replace retiring violinist Kikuei Ikeda and violist Hazuhide Isomura. The group’s final appearance in Cleveland will take place on October 30 at Plymouth Church on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series, when the Tokyo will play Haydn’s Quartet op. 76, no. 4, Alban Berg’s Quartet op. 3 and Brahms’s Quartet op. 67. British-born cellist Clive Greensmith (left) joined the Tokyo Quartet in 2002 and along with first violinist Martin Beaver made the decision to retire the whole group. We reached Greensmith by phone in New Haven, where the quartet is in residence at Yale, to ask about how a string quartet goes about closing up shop after 44 years.
Daniel Hathaway: Did it come as a surprise to you when Mr. Ikeda and Mr. Isomura decided to retire?
Clive Greensmith: Actually, no. We had been talking about what direction the quartet should go in, and as has been fairly well publicized for a while, Martin and myself thought it would be a good thing to try to find new members. [Read more…]
This week at Severance Hall, Robin Ticciati will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in concerts that feature Liadov’s Enhanted Lake and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2. The program also includes one of the most popular piano concertos in the repertoire, the Concerto No. 2 by Sergei Rachmaninoff, with Macedonian pianist Simon Trpčeski as soloist.