Treat your mind and ears with this GrouponLive deal to see The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Alice Tully Hall. Seating is best available standard or prime seating. Choose from the following concerts:
- For $24, you get one ticket to Bold Statements on Sunday, February 10, at 5 p.m. (up to a $52 value).
- For $24, you get one ticket to Metamorphosen on Friday, February 22, at 7:30 p.m. (up to a $48 value).
- For $24, you get one ticket to Love Songs on Friday, March 8, at 7:30 p.m. (up to a $48 value).
Tickets can be picked up at the Alice Tully Hall box office beginning one hour before the performance.
Bold Statements
Bold Statements opens with Richard Strauss's Violin Sonata in E-flat. An early work by the composer, the piece's second movement is written to resemble improvisation, with piano harmonies undergirding an impromptu-sounding melody by the violin. Next, contemporary composer Ned Rorem’s Aftermath captures the grief, anger, and despair that inspired its creation in the days following the September 11 attacks. With lyrics drawn from such poets as Blake, Shakespeare, and Jorge Luis Borges, the piece earned widespread acclaim after its 2002 debut, with the Chicago Tribune declaring it worthy of "lasting repertory status." Closing the program, César Franck's Quintet in F Minor follows a dreamlike pattering of ethereal piano notes with a violin explosion.
Metamorphosen
The night’s centerpiece, Metamorphosen, flowed out of Richard Strauss’s pen in 1944–45, as the devastation of World War II's final months took its toll on his mind. The mournful strains of violins drift above dark cello parts, allegedly capturing Strauss's grief at the destruction of his beloved Munich and his despair at the war's transformation of humans from divine beings into beasts. Lightening the mood, Mozart's Grande Sestetto Concertante showcases the composer at his most playful. Originally written as a hybrid symphony-concerto, the arrangement for string sextet allows The Chamber Music Society's musicians to split the chirping solos and virtuosic scales equally among themselves.
Love Songs
A lineup of German lieder delights ears in Love Songs, with masterful offerings from some of the form's greatest practitioners. Three songs by Schubert open the evening before Brahms's Zwei Gesänge wraps passionate mezzo-soprano vocals in a swirling cocoon of interweaving piano and violin accompaniment. Alban Berg's Sieben frühe Lieder shows off the composer's early experiments with atonality before Brahms's sprightly Liebeslieder Waltzes, inspired by his infatuation with the daughter of his mentor, Schumann, closes the night.
Alice Tully Hall
In 1958, Arthur Houghton, one of the founders of Lincoln Center, spent lunch trying to convince his cousin Alice Tully to finance a space for small ensembles on the Lincoln Center grounds. After the meal, unsure of whether the hall would meet her standards, the meticulous Tully gave a conditional reply: yes, as long as her name was not associated with the building. When a renowned acoustics expert was brought in to design the hall, Tully relented in her desire for anonymity but insisted on taking an active role in the design and construction of the building that would bear her name. Visiting the site several times a week throughout construction, she masterminded many of her namesake’s best-known characteristics, including its elegant basswood interior, 4,192-pipe organ, and extra-wide rows.
