Concerts at high noon: Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
The ever-popular noontime concerts of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival include a number of piano recitals; two intriguing ones this week feature Shai Wosner and Inon Barnatan. Both were born in Israel within a few years of each other — Wosner in 1976, Barnatan in 1979 — and both are now based in New York. On Tuesday, Aug. 2, Wosner offers a program consisting of impromptus, small-scale pieces of ostensibly improvisatory mien by Schubert, Dvoˇrák, Gershwin, and Chopin. He also includes two interlopers, a pair of “Improvisations” by Charles Ives, but the difference between an impromptu and an improvisation would seem mostly semantic. On Thursday, Aug. 4, Barnatan plays Brahms’ virtuosic arrangement (for piano left hand) of the famous Chaconne from Bach’s D-minor Partita for Unaccompanied Violin; the 11 short movements of György Ligeti’s
Musica ricercata (studies of carefully defined musical problems, written between 1951 and 1953); and Brahms’ towering Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. The recitals take place at noon on their respective days at the St. Francis Auditorium of the New Mexico Museum of Art, 107 W. Palace Ave. The few remaining tickets ($30-$36, with discounts for attendees under thirtyfive) can be purchased at the festival’s box office in the museum’s lobby; by calling 505-982-1890 or 888-221-9836, ext. 102; or through www.santafechambermusic.com. — James M. Keller