Ch M S of L Ctr, May 2025

Barbara, David, and John and I heard the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on May 4, 2025. I'd been to no more than a handful of their concerts and was only at this one because my friends Jere and Dale weren't able to go. I looked at the program and it sounded interesting so I bought their tickets and asked Barbara to be my date. I was expecting it to be good but I wasn't prepared for it to be so amazing. I'm going to buy a subscription for next season.

It was an all-string concert with six players, two violins, two violas, and two cellos. They played three sextets and two trios. The players were:

Paul Huang and Danbi Um, violin

Matthew Lipman and Timothy Ridout, viola

Sihao He and David Finckel, cello

The program opened with an arrangement of the "Ricercar a 6" from Bach's *Musical Offering.* It's a six-part fugue, originally written for keyboard. It's set up like a typical fugue: one person plays the fugue subject, then a second comes in with the same subject built on a different tonal center, then a third in the original position, a fourth in the second position, a fifth in the original, and a sixth in the second. It was exciting hearing how each player played the theme in a slightly different way. One of the violists played with almost no vibrato and a sort of plaintive tone, a style I heard a lot of the early music I listened to the 90s. One of the violinists played it in a cool, elegant, somewhat detached manner - - but maybe my perception of her playing was informed by the dark green gown she was wearing and/or or the cluster of jewels at the sternum.

It was exciting hearing how Bach developed the fugue. The development, in which fragments of the theme are tossed around and discussed, seemed to go on for quite a while so the reappearance of the fugue theme in its entirety really had a feeling of arrival. Can we all agree that Bach was the greatest composer who ever lived?

I went to the concert thinking the Strauss that ended the first half was the only piece I'd heard before but within five seconds I realized I knew the Bach from a recording by the Swingle Singers and the Modern Jazz Quartet:

The next piece was a trio by Haydn (G major, HOB XVI: 40, Op. 53, No 1). It was played by Um, Ridout, and He. I was expecting to be bored (Haydn is not my jam) but was pleasantly surprised. Barbara used the word "playful," which was spot on. It helped that the players brought a bit of off-brand raucousness to the music, the violinist in particular. She was going to town.

Next up, a trio by Schubert (B flat major, D 581) played by the other three players: Huang, Lipman, and Finckel. Finckel's sound was fuzzy - - it was a small problem throughout the concert but particularly in this piece where he played more of a solo part. He often played what I'll breezily call "the bass line" in the big group pieces, often holding a low note to ground the harmony for the more active other five parts. He sounded just fine doing this but when he had to play a solo line the pitches weren't as distinct as they needed to be. At one point in this piece I could see his bow moving rapidly and I could hear his intention to play different notes but all I heard was "grumble grumble grumble."

The piece in general was charming. It had an alpine, Lederhosen, "Lonely Goatherd" quality that totally won me over. The violist had a kick ass solo in the third movement. It was marvelous throughout this concert to hear such fabulous writing for the violas, which are often seen as filler.

The last piece on the first half was the one I knew the best and was most excited to hear, the sextet for strings by Richard Strauss (op 85). Its original context is as the prelude to his final opera, *Capriccio.* The opera is about a countess who has two men courting her, a poet and a composer. This string sextet was written by the composer and the characters listen to a performance of it onstage.

Here's a CMS performance from 2016 with two of the same players as we had in our performance, Finckel and Lipman.

I love the cliché at the start of the second section around 2:10 - - they're all dark and ominous, they build to a big crescendo and they all play a snappy dotted figure, Bum, BA DAH! Makes me a smile every time. Let me tell you a side story about musical clichés. I wrote my short opera *Ladies' Voices* in 1994, an eight-minute jewel. My mentor Karlos Moser was advising me when I was writing it. One day I brought in what I had written for an overture. It ended with the pianist playing a big rippling chord, culminating in a note in the treble clef that was full of longing, and capped off by the chorus singing "Ooo..." Another, grander version of the same chord culminating in a slightly higher note full of longing, the chorus singing their same "Ooo..." in the next highest position. And finally an even grander version of the rippling chord ending on a slightly higher note full of longing and the chorus's "Ooo..." at what felt like the position that signified arrival and a settled feeling. I said to Karlos:

ME: I'm not sure about this.

HIM: Why are you not sure.

ME: It seems like such a cliché

HIM: Christopher, there's a reason it's a cliché. It's because it works.

Preach! Do I hear an Amen?

Another thing I'd like to point out in this piece and the YouTube performance. Sometime around 1:15 the first violinist (the woman at the end of the arc on the left) starts a new tune. It develops a bit with the center of the tune gradually moving higher. She's playing this tune alone up until 1:38 when she's joined by one of the violists (the woman at the end of the arc on the right) playing an octave below her, giving the tune more depth and prominence. This pairing happened over and over in the Strauss and the Tchaikovsky, with the violin being supported by either a viola or a cello. The fun thing is that I could hear the tune being doubled but I couldn't pinpoint the sound from the mass of gorgeousness happening on the stage. The only way I could identify the second player was by watching their right arm - - the person doubling the violin was using the same bowing pattern as the lead violinist. Call me a square but I thought that was a fun exercise.

Speaking of gorgeousness, that was the word I wrote in my notes after the Strauss: "One word: GORGEOUS." Strauss wrote the opera in 1940 and '41 when World War II was going full steam. It's seen by some people as a fragrant escape for the audience from the horrors of war. Writing the opera might have acted as a heightened method of escape for Strauss himself - - he was desperately trying to stay in good standing with Nazi leadership without giving in to them, also trying to secure the safety of Jewish members of his family. I expect this music served as a welcome escape for the audience because Strauss wrote it as an escape for himself.

The second half was the Tchaikovsky sextet for strings (op 70), "Souvenir de Florence." What a masterpiece. The first half, to me, felt like great music that allowed the players to shine. The Tchaikovsky felt like the players were giving their all to present the genius of Tchaikovsky. The music itself was the centerpiece, rather than the performance.

And what an amazing piece of music. Thrilling, full of dazzling effects, tasty pizzicatos dancing beside juicy lines for the solo voices, endlessly inventive, and absolutely confident and assured at every moment. The most exciting moment in a piece full of exciting moments happens at 29:38 in this performance:

The six players all arrive at a single unison note, all six of them playing the same damn note, They hold it for a moment, giving it even more intensity and power - - then they peel off from it, the three upper voices moving up and the three lower moving down, fanning out to create a wide span of sound. This widening effect also happens in the rhythm, the rhythm gets more and more active and involved after that single held note. This sequence happened one more time before the end of the piece and it was an edge-of-your-seat moment.

Barbara and I were both welling up with tears at the end. It was so fulfilling to be in the presence of such beauty and artistry, something that's badly needed with all that's going on in the world.