The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s newest season download through Deutsche Grammophon’s Digital DG Concerts Series
The musicologist Alfred Einstein described Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E flat (K. 493) as ‘bright in color but iridescent, with hints of darker shades.’ Those varying nuances were beautifully illuminated by the venerable pianist Menahem Pressler and his talented young colleagues during The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s concert.” —New York Times
Now you can own this incredible concert!
One of the most beloved and honored musicians of our time, pianist Menahem Pressler was saluted by CMS in a concert recorded on March 16th and 18th at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. Now, this extraordinary concert is released as the third recording from the Chamber Music Society’s 2007-08 season on the DG Concerts label. Mr. Pressler is joined by cellist Gary Hoffman, and four exceptional young artists from the CMS Two roster: violinists Erin Keefe and Arnaud Sussmann, violist Beth Guterman, and double bassist DaXun Zhang. The program features Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E-flat major, K. 493; Dvořák’s Terzetto in C major, Op. 74; and Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667, Op. 114, “Trout.”
Menahem Pressler is best known to audiences as the formidable pianist of the renowned Beaux Arts Trio, which he founded in 1955 and has anchored ever since. Just as significant as this remarkable longevity is the way he has devoted himself to the future of chamber music through his collaborations with younger artists, and this program of much-loved classics, performed by a multi-generational roster of artists, both underscores and celebrates that legacy.
Download the concert here.
DG Concerts is Deutsche Grammophon’s revolutionary initiative for recording and releasing concert performances by illustrious orchestral collaborators including the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and now CMS.
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Previous Releases
Download DG Concerts – American Voices
Recorded on February 12, 2008, DG Concerts released American Voices , one of four concerts from the centerpiece of the CMS 2007/08 season, the 2008 Winter Festival: American Voices. On this program we hear a diverse selection of American music from one of the earliest exponents of classical chamber music in America-John Antes-and two great women of different eras: Ruth Crawford Seeger and Joan Tower, whose new work for piano and winds, A Gift, receives its World Premiere on this program. We are also reminded of how American music has in turn influenced the rest of the world by sampling works of three of the great American masters: Barber, Gershwin, and Bernstein.
Download DG Concerts – Art of Fugue
On December 4th, 2007, CMS presented J.S. Bach’s The Art of Fugue in an arrangement for string quartet and wind quintet performed by the Orion String Quartet and Windscape. The composer did not specify any instrumentation for this piece, but the arrangement presented on this occasion for mixed strings and winds by Samuel Baron (c. 1960), offers a particularly effective realization by highlighting Bach’s individual lines through distinct instrumental voices. The New York Times called the ensemble “nine of the finest musicians on the society’s roster” and praised the arrangement for how it “served the work with unfailing musicality.”
Download DG Concerts – Bartok: Contrasts – Dvorak: Piano Quintet, Op. 81
The third release featured two seminal chamber works and masterpieces of Eastern European music: Bartok’ Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano from 1938 with Erin Keefe, violin, Jose Franch-Ballester, clarinet and Gilles Vonsattel, piano; and Dvorák’s Piano Quintet in A major Op. 81 from 1887 with Wu Han, piano, Yoon Kwon and Erin Keefe, violins, Beth Guterman, viola, Efe Baltacigil, cello and Jose Franch-Ballester, clarinet.
Download DG Concerts – A Baroque Festival: Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, & Telemann
The second release was entitled Baroque Collection. This concert was recorded at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center on December 8th and 10th as part of the Chamber Music Society’s Baroque Festival concert series. Works on the program are from Telemann, Handel, Bach, and Vivaldi.
Download DG Concerts – Chamber Music of Debussy, Stucky, Saariaho, and Dalbavie
The first project of the new DG Concerts collaboration featured one of this season’s most stimulating and critically acclaimed CMS programs. The three chamber sonatas of a planned cycle of six that Claude Debussy was able to compose before his death in 1918 are coupled with the “completion” of the French master’s ambitious project by three of the most exciting creative voices on the current musical scene: French composer Marc-André Dalbavie, Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, and American composer Steven Stucky.