by Daniel Hathaway
Last Tuesday evening, December 5, the Emerson String Quartet visited the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights for the first time in several years. They made up for that hiatus with performances of striking works by Haydn, Britten, and Shostakovich, the last of the three all the more intense for having been played with most of the lights out. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
On Tuesday, December 5, the Emerson String Quartet will return to the Cleveland Chamber Music Society Series for the first time since 2011. Violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violist Lawrence Dutton, and cellist Paul Watkins will play Joseph Haydn’s Quartet Op. 20, No. 2, Benjamin Britten’s Quartet No. 2, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 15 in a 7:30 pm concert at Plymouth Church presented in cooperation with the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Winter Chamber Music Festival.
The Emerson need no introduction to fans of chamber music. Now one of the most venerable quartets on the international circuit, the group has been active for over four decades since its founding in 1976, with only one change in personnel — cellist Paul Watkins joined the Emerson in 2013, replacing David Finckel. On a personal note, I vividly remember hosting them on the Gund Concert Series at Groton School in Massachusetts very soon after they first got together, and when their practice of alternating first and second violins was still an innovation.
The repertory for the Emersons’ December 5 performance may also need no introduction for diehard chamber music aficionados, but other listeners might appreciate knowing a bit about the music and getting some of it in their ears before Tuesday evening. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The distinguished German violinist Christian Tetzlaff has visited Northeast Ohio several times recently as soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra and to appear on the Oberlin Artist Recital Series. On Tuesday, November 14, he returned to town in a different role — as primo violin with his quartet in a remarkable concert on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society Series at Plymouth Church. (Since this photo was taken, the violinist has acquired both a Van Dyke and a ponytail.) [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
German violinist Christian Tetzlaff has appeared several times recently in Northeast Ohio, as soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom and Severance Hall, and in a solo recital on the Oberlin Artist Recital Series. On Tuesday, November 14, he’ll pay us another visit, bringing his string quartet to the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series at Plymouth Church for its Cleveland debut. Tetzlaff will join violinist Elisabeth Kufferath, violist Hanna Weinmeister, and his cellist sister Tanja Tetzlaff in a program of quartets by Mozart, Berg, and Schubert.
Speaking by telephone from her home in Hannover, Elisabeth Kufferath said she’s excited to return to Cleveland after many years. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
What’s a string quartet to do when their cellist is running late for a concert? Vamp until ready, of course. Before their October 10 debut on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society Series, Danish String Quartet violist Asbjørn Nørgaard and violinist Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen entertained the audience at Plymouth Church with an informative little off-the-cuff pre-concert lecture, charmingly laced with dry Danish humor and musical examples. [Read more…]
by Jarrett Hoffman
When you play the first track of Last Leaf, the Danish String Quartet’s new album of Nordic folk music, a tune over a drone in the harmonium meets your ears. Whether “Despair Not, O Heart,” a Lutheran chorale known mostly as a funeral hymn, finds a certain spot in you called soul or just some hidden nook of the brain, it feels special.
Praised by the Washington Post as “one of the best quartets before the public today,” the Danish String Quartet — Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen and Frederik Øland, violins, Asbjørn Nørgaard, viola, and Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin, cello — follow up Last Leaf with an October tour beginning in the U.S. and wrapping around to Denmark and Germany.
On October 10, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society brings the Quartet to Plymouth Church UCC in Shaker Heights with a program of Bartok’s String Quartet No. 1, Beethoven’s String Quartet, Op. 59, No. 1, and Nordic folk music arranged by the Quartet.
by Daniel Hathaway
One of the Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s favorite ensembles, the Takács Quartet, will return to Plymouth Church on Tuesday, April 18 at 7:30 pm for a program of works by Ludwig van Beethoven — one quartet each from his early, middle, and late periods.
On Tuesday, violinists Edward Dusinberre and Károly Schranz, violist Geraldine Walther, and cellist András Fejér will play the quartets in B-flat, Op. 18, No. 6, in F, Op. 135, and in C, Op. 59, No. 3, the “Razumovsky,” arranged not in chronological order, but in an uplifting spiral of rising fifths from B-flat to F, to C.
It’s common knowledge that Beethoven turned music on its ear during his creatively eventful career, but it’s worthwhile reminding ourselves from time to time exactly how he changed the course of musical composition and performance. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
The Jerusalem Quartet are regulars on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series. On Tuesday, March 21 at 7:30 pm, violinists Alexander Pavlovsky and Sergei Bresler, violist Ori Kam, and cellist Kyril Zlotnikov will return for their fourth visit in eight years to perform music by Haydn, Prokofiev, and Dvořák at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. WCLV’s Mark Satola will give a pre-concert lecture at 6:30 pm.
Though the quartet was unavailable for a telephone interview, violist Ori Kam kindly agreed to respond to questions by email. [Read more…]
In the spirit of TV shows like “America’s Got Talent,” the Cleveland Chamber Music Society will hold its Third Annual Youth Chamber Music Challenge on Sunday, March 12 at 2:00 pm at the Lyndhurst Community Presbyterian Church. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
If you follow the stream of distinguished chamber music ensembles that tour Northeast Ohio each year, you get the feeling that many of them are making the area their second home. However, when the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet made their fifth appearance on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series on February 8, their splendid, refined performance made you wish they would come through town more often. [Read more…]