By Dennis D. Rooney The Henschel Quartet is named for three of the group’s original members who, with cellist Mathias Beyer-Karlhøj, founded it in 1994. Two of the Henschel siblings remain, first violinist Christoph and violist Monika. Second violinist Catalin Desaga joined them in 2016. Christoph Henschel plays a 1721 Stradivarius; Desaga’s violin is by Jan Bobak, a … [Read more...]
Prima Trio brings zest and brilliance to Flagler series
By Dennis D. Rooney The Prima Trio is composed of Anastasia Dedik, piano; Gulia Gurevich, violin and viola; and Boris Allakhverdyan, clarinet. They met while students at the Oberlin Conservatory and founded the trio in 2004. They appeared Feb. 6 on the Flagler Museum Music Series for a second time; their debut was in 2009. Unlike the piano trio, the repertoire for … [Read more...]
Beautifully played Dvořák caps fine Hermitage Trio outing
By Dennis D. Rooney The Hermitage Piano Trio takes its name from the great Russian museum of art and culture in St. Petersburg founded in 1764 by Empress Catherine the Great. The players are Ilya Kazantsev, piano; Misha Keylin, violin; and Sergey Antonov, cello. Their concert Jan. 23 in the Flagler’s current Music Series opened with a relative novelty, Dmitri … [Read more...]
Stellar Bartók stands out at Tesla Quartet’s Flagler appearance
By Dennis D. Rooney The procession of string quartets to South County concert venues continued last Tuesday with a concert by the Tesla String Quartet. They chose a classic program: Bartók’s Third Quartet of 1927 was flanked by early and middle period quartets of Beethoven. Founded at New York’s Juilliard School in 2008, the Teslas quickly began to attract awards, … [Read more...]
Gaugengigl: Flager exhibit revives interest in forgotten Boston painter
The winter exhibition coming to the Flagler Museum this January is a rescue mission of an obscure classically trained artist with no direct ties to Henry Flagler – although he would have loved the works. Masterfully Human: The Art of Gaugengigl examines the highly evocative body of work of Boston painter and etcher Ignaz Marcel Gaugengigl through 75 pieces that include … [Read more...]
Flagler exhibit shows romance, peril of World War I combat in the air
Before it became a battle skill, flying was first a question and a plane was a toy piloted by an eccentric character with lots of free time. World War I changed all of that. When it came knocking and looking for heroes, aviation had to hurry up and grow real fast. The subjects of Flagler Museum’s fall exhibition are no stranger to the spotlight and under no pressure to … [Read more...]
Arts Preview 2017-18: The season in Palm Beach County art
Art selfies have arrived! And they are welcome to stay, so long as we are mindful of the artworks nearby. Just because cultural institutions are thinking outside-the-box, embracing new technologies and millennial-inspired ideas doesn’t mean the golden rule stopped applying: Look, don’t touch. This is not photography’s year. Then again, Earth Works: Mapping the Anthropocene, … [Read more...]
St. Petersburg Piano Quartet ends Flagler season with assured Mozart, Brahms
By Dennis D. Rooney Mozart may not have written the very first piano quartet, being preceded in a way by J. C. Bach, Schobert and others, but he definitely was the first to write piano quartets in which all the voices are equal, and the indicated keyboard instrument is a pianoforte in the modern sense. In 1785, Mozart received a commission from the Viennese publisher … [Read more...]
PB Symphony percussion concert challenging, innovative
Only six players constituted the Palm Beach Symphony on Feb. 8, in a case of staffing to suit the venue: the concert was in the acoustically ripe room housing Henry Flagler’s personal railway carriage. About 500 people attended. Moving from the rear of the orchestra where they always play, the daunting six percussionists were front and center and made up in volume what they … [Read more...]
Lyricism, energy distinguish Belgian violin-piano duo at Flagler
By Dennis D. Rooney Sitting in the Music Room of Whitehall, the 1902 stately home of Henry M. Flagler at Cocoanut Row and Whitehall Way in Palm Beach, and now the museum that bears his name, reminds me a little of hearing a concert at the Frick Collection in New York. Henry Clay Frick and Flagler, were both tycoons (steel and oil, respectively) whose residences became … [Read more...]