United States ‘WinterFest 2026’ [2] – Various: Musicians of the Lyrica program. Lyrica Boston, Lincoln, Massachusetts, 11.1.2026. (LV)
Anton Arensky – String Quartet No.2 in A minor, Op.35
Beethoven – String Trio No.3 in G major, Op.9 No.1
Schubert – String Quintet in C major, D.956, Op.163
From its first concert in 2000, LyricaFest has flourished as one of those rare chamber-music environments in which listening itself feels like the primary art form – careful, generous and alert to how music is shaped in real time. This second concert of the 2026 ‘WinterFest’ season – introduced in 2014 alongside Lyrica’s original summer session – showcased the festival’s intensive chamber-music work with advanced young musicians, ranging in age from their late teens into the early thirties, from undergraduates to postgraduates, many already engaged in professional careers or clearly on that path. What emerged was a sequence of performances distinguished less by uniform finish than by sharply contrasted character. The Beethoven was ferociously brilliant, driven with confidence and risk; the Anton Arensky proved spiritually moving; and the Schubert sounded refreshingly, exuberantly youthful, its generosity of spirit carrying the music forward even when edges remained rough.
Arensky’s String Quartet No.2 opened the program, played by violinist Amelia Posner-Hess, violist Taisiya Sokolova and cellists Aaron Lieberman and Benjamin Doane, the paired low voices anchoring the sonority with ecclesiastical gravity. In this work, Arensky reimagines the standard quartet balance by shifting the center of gravity decisively downward, its texture freshly reweighted and all the more striking for it. The middle-movement, Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky – more familiar in its string-orchestra guise – emerged as the work’s emotional core. The quicker variations, especially those driven by buoyant pizzicatos, expressed pure joy, with a fleeting echo of the ‘Pathétique’ in their rhythmic lift. Throughout, Posner-Hess and Sokolova met the movement’s technical and emotional demands superbly, shaping their lines with assurance while sustaining the music’s inward, elegiac tension, before the quartet drove to a brilliant, decisive close.
Beethoven’s String Trio in G major, Op.9 No.1, performed by Sicong Chen, Zoe Slap and Zanipolo Lewis, was propelled by an unmistakable sense of shared momentum and individual commitment. Played with all repeats, it came close to capturing the enormous impact Beethoven must have delivered to his first listeners: a boldness of conception and a sense of humor that first confounds and then delights. From the opening bar one could hear precisely what Tovey meant by music that pushes beyond the conventions of the Op.18 quartets. Each player contributed fully and without reserve – trills tossed off with wit, runs charged with kinetic energy and an appetite for risk that kept the music bristling with life. The Scherzo’s Trio section was especially rollicking, violin and cello trading trills with gleeful confidence, while throughout Chen led with the poise and authority of a natural concertmaster. This was chamber music – and Beethoven – not contained but unleashed.
In Schubert’s String Quintet in C major, played by violinists Gabriel Roth and Iris Lin, violist Josue Negrete and cellists Noah Ferris and Umi Neal, the opening felt tentative, the ensemble searching for a common current. Once the flow locked in, however, confidence grew steadily. The paired cello melodies were magnificent, grounding the music in that ineffable Schubertian blend of innocence and depth. The Adagio unfolded with hypnotic inevitability, its long lines carried intact through moments of violent turbulence, as if the music were calmly absorbing the aftershocks of an unseen storm. The Scherzo felt open-hearted and generous rather than driven, and the finale danced, at times with an unmistakable Viennese lilt, Roth’s first violin sympathetic and authentic, guiding without imposing.
In a concert marked by collective purpose and emerging individuality, the performances together illuminated LyricaFest’s particular place in the U.S. chamber-music ecosystem. This is a setting where advanced young musicians are expected not merely to play well but to listen, to take responsibility for structure and pacing and to test ideas in real time. The results were not about polish or individual virtuosity – though there was plenty of both – but about the beginnings of artistic ownership, an approach that aligns LyricaFest with the country’s most serious incubators of chamber-music thinking.
Laurence Vittes
Featured Image: Gabriel Roth, Iris Lin, Noah Ferris, Umi Neal and Josue Negrete play Schubert’s Quintet © Hannah Jieun Sohn