Rosamunde String Quartet. Bejamin Hochman, piano. March 10, 2024.

Town Hall, NYC.  Auditorium.  (Seat N117, $15.45)

Program

String Quartet in C Major, Op. 20, No. 2 (1772) by Haydn (1792-1809).

String Quartet No. 3 (1927) by Bartok (1881-1945).

Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44 (1842) by R. Schumann (1810-1856).

At the end of the concert.  Bendix-Balgley, Hochman, Yao, Vickery and Li.

Quartet: Noah Bendix-Balgley and Shanshan Yao, violins; Teng Li, viola; Nathan Vickery, cello.

This is another concert in the PSC series that I subscribed to for the season.  Even in my jag-lagged state (I returned from a 3+ week trip to Australia and Asia the day before), it had to be one of the more enjoyable and well-performed concerts I have attended.

As I have stated many times before, I am not a chamber music person.  It's counterintuitive that four or five lines of music are more difficult to follow than the many sections in a symphony orchestra.  My brain and my ears are just not tuned that way.

Today, however, the lines were clear, the interplay easy to appreciate, and the overall effect was simply magnificent (getting carried away there a bit).

For the Haydn piece Yao had the first violin, and for Bartok it was Bendix-Balgley.  As Bendix-Balgley explained after the first piece, the Haydn piece is a delight, the Bartok piece runs the gamut of folk music to (close to) rock and roll, and Schumann's composed during his chamber music period, and is a prime example of music from the Romantic period.  I didn't need more description than that today.

All the musicians play (or played) in world-renown orchestras.  Bendix-Balgley is a first concertmaster at Berlin Philharmonic, Teng Li the principal violist at LA Phil, and Vickery the youngest cellist hired by NY Phil.  (And what is the difference between a concertmaster and a first concertmaster?)

My usual complaint about not being able to hear the viola wasn't a problem today.  Perhaps there were fewest lines to follow, or perhaps Li simply projected well.  Indeed, sometimes I thought the viola was too loud.  For the Schumann piece I wish the piano was louder, as it was it sounded like it was background oftentimes.  Make no mistake though: today's was a great concert.

As usual, I sat in the back (Row R) so I could make a quick getaway at the end to catch the 4:07 pm train home.

The train timetables are such I got into NY before 1 pm, so I decided to take walk (all the way to 3rd Avenue) to get my steps in.  I was surprised how much homelessness I encountered along the way.