United States Isaac Stern Memorial Live performance – Brahms, ‘Maxim Vengerov and Mates’: Maxim Vengerov, Vilde Frang (violins), James Ehnes (viola), Daniel Müller-Schott (cello), Yefim Bronfman (piano), Anthony McGill (clarinet). Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Corridor, 16.12.2025. (ES-S)
Brahms – Piano Quintet in F minor, Op.34; Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op.115
An all-Brahms program can simply invite a way of monumentality, given the music’s density and Brahms’s lengthy affiliation with symphonic density. But the ‘Vengerov and Mates’ live performance at Carnegie Corridor resisted such expectations in favor of one thing extra probing: Brahms heard as a composer of dialogue, stress and inward complexity, qualities that lie on the coronary heart of his chamber writing. The night, which concerned musicians with robust particular person voices and expertise, unfolded as a genuinely collaborative studying, a precedence that aligns naturally with Vengerov’s second season as a Carnegie Corridor Views artist.
The Piano Quintet in F minor stays one among Brahms’s most complicated chamber statements, its turbulent floor concealing an extended and troublesome gestation. That sense of inside strain was evident from the outset, although the efficiency resisted any temptation to forged the work as a bluntly symphonic object. On the identical time, the opening uncovered moments of coordination unease between piano and strings that sometimes resurfaced later. Bronfman averted asserting himself as a dominant presence, staying carefully attuned to the encompassing texture. Energy was held in verify, at occasions on the expense of a extra elastic sense of circulation.
Among the many strings, management circulated moderately than settled, although not at all times with full unanimity of route or expressive character. Maxim Vengerov’s presence was felt much less by means of overt management than by means of inflection, shaping transitions by means of delicate modifications of articulation, timing and colour. Vilde Frang introduced a tensile, finely centered sound that sharpened the music’s inside tensions, though her contributions usually remained coolly contained. James Ehnes’s viola strains had been marked by an inward focus, lending harmonic weight and expressive focus from throughout the texture, significantly in passages the place the viola introduces or reframes key motivic materials. Daniel Müller-Schott’s cello taking part in likewise averted rhetorical extra, protecting the bass line versatile and cell, even at moments when coordination between voices proved fragile.
The Allegro non troppo unfolded with a managed, measured trajectory, stress accumulating step by step with little sense of youthful ardor. The motion’s construction was clearly articulated, climaxes rising cautiously. Within the Andante, the piano’s understated phrasing set a gap of notable reserve, the strings responding in sort. Expressive weight surfaced slowly, with the stability constantly maintained and inwardness saved inside slim bounds.
The third motion prioritized rhythmic exactitude over ahead momentum, its C-major trio part rising with chorale-like solidity moderately than heat. Within the Finale, veiled opening sonorities had been allowed to hover earlier than giving solution to extra animated writing, although and not using a sustained sense of propulsion. Within the Poco sostenuto, a sequence bringing ahead the piano and cello urged a concentrated expressive depth inside a contained body and evoked Brahms’s Beethovenian inheritance. All through, readability of voicing took priority over sweep or romantic souffle, framing the quintet much less as an impassioned assertion than as a coolly chamber argument. The studying urged that the reunion of distinguished musical voices doesn’t in itself assure interpretive unanimity or a efficiency of singular distinction.
Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet in B minor inhabits a markedly totally different expressive terrain. It’s usually understood as a piece of retrospection, suffused with nostalgia and the quiet disappointment of a composer within the autumn of his life, however the interpreters appeared reluctant to totally embrace that Romantic self-reflective impulse. As an alternative, they favored poise, tonal refinement and stability over emotional abandon, leading to a studying marked by measured emotional distance.
From his first entrance, Anthony McGill formed the clarinet’s lengthy phrases with heat and discretion, counting on delicate dynamic modifications inside prolonged legato strains that tempered overt craving. His taking part in was imbued with an nearly improvisatory high quality, most evident within the rhapsodic central episode of the Adagio the place it evoked a way of late heat and mellowed colour as an alternative of unrelieved melancholy. The string quartet supplied a balanced backdrop, with Vengerov, the night’s host, favoring mix over projection. Nonetheless, the ensemble usually appeared content material to take a step again, significantly when better resonance may need anchored the feel extra firmly.
Within the Andantino, rhythmic flexibility and buoyant articulation softened the motion’s contours, edging it towards the pastoral. Phrases breathed naturally, and McGill’s taking part in retained a spontaneous high quality with out indulging in overt rubato or rhetorical show. The finale, a set of variations constructed on materials associated to the opening motion, was articulated with readability and composure. Particular person variations had been clearly differentiated in character with out being sharply profiled, the emphasis remaining on continuity moderately than distinction. On the shut, Brahms’s quiet recall of the primary motion’s theme was formed with admirable dynamic management, the opening theme’s return dissolving quietly, nearly like an evanescent breath.
This was Carnegie Corridor’s annual Isaac Stern Memorial Live performance. The night invited reflection on Stern’s lifelong ardour for chamber music and Brahms, and on his perception that music’s energy lies not in technical polish however in its capability to speak and join – a conception that the night’s ensemble honored in intention however didn’t absolutely convey.
Edward Sava-Segal
