92Y Online Concert – Brentano String Quartet Plays Mendelssohn and Haydn. October 13, 2020.

“Live” Broadcast from 92Y ($10).

Program

Mendelssohn, Selections from Four Pieces, Op. 81

Haydn, Quartet in D Major, Op. 17, No. 6

Mendelssohn, String Quintet No. 2 in -flat Major, Op. 87 (with Hsin-Yun Huang, viola)

Quartet Members

Mark Steinberg, Serena Canin – Violin; Misha Amory – Viola; Nina Lee – Cello

92Y offered a series of solo recitals and chamber concerts at $15 each, discounted to $10 each if one signed up for all 10.  It is a rather impressive list of artists, at a very reasonable price.

It is very difficult to locate on the 92Y website the program for the concert, and I still can’t find any notes on the different pieces being played.  One would think that would be a natural, what with the concert being on-line only.  I did manage to locate the music scores for the pieces, and able to follow along.  There were "technical issues" that caused a postponement of an hour; so not all kinks have been worked out yet.

It took me a while to locate this description of the Program on the 92Y website.

I don’t have a good setup to view these online concerts.  I could only use Chromecast if I view that on our TV.  That ended up with a jerky video stream, so I ended up watching this on a laptop, using my Bose Bluetooth speaker.  It was okay, but not great.

There were quite a few lovely passages, performed beautifully by the musicians.  I just wish the viewing experience had been better – no doubt much of the bad experience was my setup.

The string quintet was my first encounter with a second viola in a group.  One could argue there is a richer texture to the music, but one could also be excused if one doesn’t notice a fifth string instrument in the mix.

The movements of the pieces are listed below:

Mendelssohn: Four Pieces for String Quartet, Op. 81.  These were four different works published together after Mendelssohn’s death.  As far as I could tell, all four pieces were played.

Tema con variazioni (Andante sostenuto) in E Major, Op. 81/1 (1847);

Scherzo (Allegro leggiero) in A Minor, Op. 81/2 (1847);

Capriccio (Andante con moto) in E Minor, Op. 81/3 (1843);

Fugue (A tempo ordinario) in E-flat Major, Op. 81/4 (1827).

Haydn: Quartet in D Major, Op. 17, No. 6 (Quartet No. 20, Hoboken No. III:30) (1771)

Presto

Menuetto

Largo

Finale: Allegro

Mendelssohn: String Quintet No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 87 (1845)

Allegro vivace

Andante scherzando

Adagio e lento

Allegro molto vivace

Notice the marking "DVR" on the upper left corner of the screen.  At the beginning of the broadcast it said "Live."