daily festival recaps
- Music@Menlo Wraps Up Spectacular Sixth Season (August 08)
- Voices of Our Time (August 07)
- "without whom we would be mute" (August 06)
- Just Another Day at Music@Menlo (August 05)
- Private Music Made Public (August 04)
- Modernist Marathon (August 03)
- The Musical Imagination (August 03)
- Delicious Dissonance (August 01)
- What Ithaka Means (August 01)
- Romantic Cadence (July 30)
- Brahms the Progressive (July 30)
- "Vissi d'arte..." (July 29)
- "...and all the world is fresh and bright again." (July 27)
- Festive Day, Romantic Evening (July 27)
- Open House (July 25)
- "Origins of Modern String Playing" and Today's Rising Stars (July 25)
- Classical Bookends (July 23)
- Lesser Gives More (July 22)
- Fame is the Spur (July 22)
- Yes! (and Bird! and Bach!) (July 20)
- Baroque Heroics (July 19)
- Towards Bach (July 18)
- A Grand Beginning (July 17)
Brahms the Progressive
Posted: July 30
Quick on the heels of Jorja Fleezanis’s Cafe Conversation on Monday, Music@Menlo welcomed another returning violinist and renowned educator back to the festival stage on Tuesday. Ian Swensen led the season’s latest master class, coaching the International Program artists as they prepared the Opus 60 Piano Quartet and Opus 87 Piano Trio of Johannes Brahms. Audiences from previous festival seasons have come to look especially forward to the exuberant energy and unique pedagogical gifts Ian brings to the Chamber Music Institute; Tuesday’s master class satisfied all expectations.
The Piano Trio was heard in full at the evening’s Prelude Performance, given voice by pianist Liza Stepanova, violinist Grace Park, and cellist Dmitri Atapine; the Hausmann Quartet followed with the Opus 41/1 String Quartet of Robert Schumann. After the Prelude Performance came the summer’s second performance of “The Romantic Generation,” which surrounded more Brahms (the Opus 40 Horn Trio) with music by Dvorak, Wolf, and Schumann. This program’s final performance takes place Wednesday evening (8:00 p.m., Stent Family Hall), before Music@Menlo 2008 sallies forth into the rich musical tapestry of the twentieth century: legendary American pianist Gary Graffman arrived at the festival on Tuesday afternoon to prepare for the season’s third Carte Blanche Concert, “For the Left Hand” (July 31, 8:00 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal Church), a one-of-a-kind recital program offering left-hand piano music by composers from Brahms and Chopin to Kirchner and Corigliano.