Performances in N.Y.C. Advertisement Supported by By Johanna Keller SAMUEL BARBER’S Adagio for Strings begins softly, with a single note, a B flat, played by the violins. Two beats later the lower ...

This new book about Samuel Barber’s famous, eloquently mournful “Adagio for Strings” is 262 pages long. About one-fourth of those pages are eminently worthy of the music lovers’ careful attention. In ...

Not everything a great composer writes is always great music. Everyone has a hit rate and these vary from genius to genius. Even by Schubert’s own standards, though, the Adagio from the String Quintet ...

Franz Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major is linked to death in a way few pieces of music are. The early 19th century Austrian composer was prolific enough to have a large body of work yet died quite ...

György Ligeti's First Quartet (1953-54) was a bottom-drawer work in his native Hungary for being too adventurous. And after his flight to the West in 1956 it became bottom drawer because it was too ...

In a long and useful booklet-note, Alan George, the quartet’s founding viola player, lays out their performing principles, which (guess what?) in practice come back round to share the pitch and ...