Chamber Music (Vol. 1)

Tweets, Texts and Tchaikovsky: Live Concerts for a Contemporary Audience

by Marc Giosi

In an age of streaming internet video, text messages and 140 character Tweets, how can live classical music appeal to today’s audience? Get two concert presenters in a room together and the topic will always land on disappearing audiences and declining ticket sales. Is the live concert dead? Or is the live concert, as Anton Rubinstein knew it, simply over? Marc Giosi, Executive Director of Chatham Baroque, brings his thoughts on changing up the norms for music performance.

A Tale of Two Kreutzer Sonatas

by Andrew Swensen

Once upon a time chamber music was not a spectator sport. It was something that people lived and breathed every day. It was a very personal expression. In this regard the world of music differed from many other art forms because in the case of music two artists are required to bring it to life – one to compose it and one to perform it – and very often that latter artist was a person like you or me, playing in their own home. The world of chamber music unfolds through the literature of Tolstoy and his novella “The Kreutzer Sonata.”

Period Chamber Music: Museum Piece or Modern Performance?

by James Ranson

Period works both vocal and instrumental were written not for large-scale concert halls but for smaller, informal settings, and once upon a time they were the Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson of their day. Before time turned them into concert works, many of these pieces were songs and dances, types of revelry. Could a small ensemble reach new audiences and grow as an organization by simply changing its venue? And by extension, could adopting a revelry- and social-venue based performance practice revive struggling period groups nationwide? James Ranson contemplates returning chamber music to the public spaces that were once their home.

The Beauty of the Small, or Music in Our Chambers

by Andrew Swensen

In former days, there was no such thing as recording. If you wanted to hear music, it had to be performed, and then as now, it was not easy to assemble 50 or more musicians and find someone who had the chops to take on a Chopin piano concerto. On the other hand, music was ever present in the living room…in the form of chamber music. This brief contemplation considers a day when we had to make the music that we heard in our homes, and speaks up on behalf of the masterpieces in the classical repertoire more miniature in nature.

Chamber Music, the Pittsburgh View

A summary of those who perform and present chamber music in Pittsburgh.