Chamber music delights in Fort Worth and Dallas: from Brahms and Dohnányi to Franck and Schubert

Gregory Sullivan Isaacs | 19 SEP 2025

This review is unusual in that it covers the wealth of concerts in the Metroplex in a single weekend.

First, there was a major concert presented by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in the fabulous Meyerson Symphony Center this past Friday. Unfortunately, next door, there was an important touring dance company’s performance in the equally resplendent Winspear Opera House that had to be passed up.

Such was not the case with chamber music this week. Two concerts were held on successive evenings, allowing me to attend both—one in Fort Worth and the other in Dallas.

These were superlative concerts, performed by top-level musicians. However, what was different was that one was in a small, yet acoustically excellent, recital hall, and the other was in a resplendent, modernistic private home. This is an example of the two historical faces of chamber music venues: one public and one private. Over hundreds of years, similar events have been critically important to the development of what we call classical music (for lack of a better term).

Some background:

At first, concert music was a private affair. Performances were exclusive, invited-only affairs for the socially significant and usually titled audiences. These events were held in large ornate palaces or in private homes of similar stature.

The first paid public concert occurred in London in 1672 at the home of a local musician.  The ticket price was one shilling (about 12¢ today). However, this was not pocket change. At the time, one shilling would have bought about $10 worth of goods in today’s money.

So, the growing interest in classical music by the 12¢ crowd (the newly emerging middle class), fueled by the Enlightenment, caught the interest of promoters. Concert music as a privilege for the aristocratic and religious “royalty” was definitely passé. Concert halls proliferated and soon any city or town had to have one (or more) to be worth its spot on the map.

This seemingly remote discussion appears because what occurred in the Metroplex is a sample of this history—concert hall versus private home.

On Saturday afternoon, the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth presented the opening concert of their 2025-2026 series in the excellent concert hall in the Fort Worth Modern Art Museum. On Sunday evening, Dallas’ Blue Candlelight Music Series opened its season with a concert held in a private home, albeit one that the owners designed explicitly for such a purpose.

Reviews of these two events follow.

The Fort Worth Chamber Music Society was started in 1980. The founders were Steven DeGroote, the 1977 Van Cliburn gold medalist, Robert Davidovici, then the concertmaster of the Fort Worth Symphony, and Leon Brachman, a respected local arts volunteer and civic leader. Now in the able hands of the concert violinist and Dallas Symphony associate concertmaster emeritus, Gary Levinson. The organization presents a concert series featuring distinguished touring chamber groups as well as ensembles made up of equally distinguished, but locally based, musicians.

In addition to big-name string quartets and others, Levinson frequently assembled a group of outstanding artists from around the country under the moniker “CMSFW Ensemble,” as he did here. For this concert, in addition to himself, he brought pianist Hyeyeon Park, violinist Jen Betz, violist Dmitry Kustanovich, and cellist Julian Schwarz.  In addition to the strings, this concert also included Bernhard Scully on horn and Jonathan Gunn on clarinet.

First up was an amazing piece that appears on many “Desert Island Favorites” lists, Johannes Brahms’ glorious Trio for Horn, Violin, and Piano, Op. 40.  Both Levinson and Park were excellent right from the start, but it took Scully a little while to warm up to the acoustics. But once they got going, they delivered a terrific performance of a much-loved masterwork.

Next came two pieces by composer Alan Shulman.  While his name might not be all that familiar to local audiences, his daughter is certainly known here. He is a distinguished program annotator and the author of the definitive book on the Meyerson Symphony Center.

Alan Shulman’s compositions certainly deserve more performances, and it was a pleasure to hear these two distinctive works. We heard his Suite Based on American Folk Songs for violin and piano, as well as his jazzy Rendezvous for Clarinet and String Quartet.

As Shulman traveled the country, he gathered a treasure trove of American folk songs that he later used in a work for wind quintet, as well as this piece for clarinet and string quartet.  We heard the last three movements of the suite, which displayed the virtuosity of the players, as well as Shulman’s endless creativity as a composer. His setting of “What Shall I Do with a Drunken Sailor” turns the familiar shanty into an instrumental showpiece for all the players.

The program closed with a work by Ernst von Dohnányi, a composer who deserves much more attention, as does this masterpiece, his Sextet in C Major, Op. 37. The instrumentalists made a considerable case for more performances of this excellently crafted piece.

Dohnányi’s name can be added to a list of otherwise marvelous composers who were ignored because they continued to write within the tonal spectrum while others turned to atonality, serialism, and wild musical experimentation. Fortunately, these days, a very few of these shunned composers are experiencing a resurgence, but we will never hear music from the many fine composers who simply quit writing music rather than endure being ignored by the supposed cognoscenti.

Dohnányi’s Sextet combines string and wind instruments, with a prominent piano part, in such a manner as to create a miniature orchestra. Yet, he also uses them in various combinations, such as we heard earlier in the Brahms trio and Shulman selections. This Sextet is a work that requires superlative players to manage the extreme virtuosity the composer demands from one and all.   But here, the ensemble delivered an impressive performance that thrilled the audience.

A final mention must be made of the incredible work that pianist Hyeyeon Park delivered throughout the entire afternoon. Each of the works on the program features difficult, prominent piano parts that challenge almost everyone who attempts them. But, putting them all in one program is asking for a superhuman effort, which Park accomplished without any evident strain or even apparent difficulty.

Brava.

The Blue Candlelight Music Series offers another type of performing venue that harkens back to chamber music’s beginnings—in private homes that are able to accommodate both performers, a fine piano, and the audience. In a hat-tip to past traditions, before the music starts, this series offers elegantly catered canapés and sweets at intermission.

Sunday’s concert featured the superb violinist Avi Nagin paired with the equally excellent pianist Jihye Chang. For the first notes, both artists made an immediate impression.

Nagin is best known as a violinist in the highly acclaimed Amernet String Quartet, which serves as the artist-in-residence ensemble at Florida International University. He is also their professor of chamber music.

In addition to a busy concert schedule, Chang is a distinguished instructor of piano on the faculty at Boston University College of Fine Arts, as well as for the Brevard Music Center, and is also the director of Bulgaria’s Piano Intensive.

Avi Nagin and Jihye Chang.

The first half of the program reads like a group of favorites for both artists. There was some short works by Brahms and Dvorák, as well as a sonatina by Schubert. All of these selections immediately displayed the technical as well as the musical mastery of the duo. But the highlight of the first half was a touching rendition of Jules Massenet’s stunningly beautiful “Meditation” from the opera, Thaïs.

This universally admired selection is one of the composer’s best-known works.  The opera itself never reached the popularity of Massenet’s other oeuvres, such as Manon and Werther. In Thaïs, the “Meditation” is written for violin and orchestra, but it is also heard just as frequently in this arrangement for violin and piano.

It was fascinating to observe the audience during this sensitive and lovely rendition. When the music started, everyone murmured slightly as they immediately recognized the music. But as it went on, there was a hush that came over the room with the realization that this was not just another rendition of a well-known, slightly maudlin piece. In this performance, Massenet’s music rose above its more usual reputation to impress everyone, as it does in its place in the opera.

The program ended with an energetic and lyrical performance of César Franck’s glorious Sonata in A major, the best-known work by the French composer and one of the absolute masterpieces in the violin sonata repertoire. It is also notorious for the extreme difficulty presented in the piano part, although the violin part presents its own significant challenges.

In this performance, both artists rose to, and even exceeded, the composer’s challenge by delivering a highly accomplished reading. At times, the playing might have been slightly overwrought, but that is as much a criticism of the composer as the performers. Frequently, Franck writes such passionate music that begs to be played so fervently that the dynamic perspective becomes irrelevant to the moment. But that minor quibble aside, this was a memorable performance of an undisputed masterpiece, enhanced by the immediacy of hearing it in the living room venue. ■

EXTERNAL LINKS:

• Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth: cmsfw.org
• Blue Candelight Music Series: bluecandlelight.org

About the author:

Gregory Sullivan Isaacs is a Dallas-based composer, conductor, and journalist. He is also a coach and teacher with a private studio.

Read more by Gregory Sullivan Isaacs.

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