By Lyn Bronson
The Carmel Music Society launched its 83rd season last night in Carmel’s Sunset Center with a return visit by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble, a group that found much favor in its appearance here a few years ago. The evening’s program contained two novelties, a string sextet by Richard Strauss and a string octet by Joachim Raff, plus the perennial favorite, Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings in E-flat Major, Op. 20. Not surprisingly, all three works received outstanding performances.
Although the String Sextet from “Capriccio†by Richard Strauss is a minor work, in this performance we heard superb playing in which the individual parts blended in perfect ensemble to create a richly detailed tapestry of smoothly continuous sound. Nowhere was there a dotted note, a jagged rhythm or an unexpected silence to disturb the flowing motion of this piece.
