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The 2025 Robert Mann Chamber Music Series opens with a program highlighting the Festival’s own musicians. Schubert left his String Trio in B Flat, D. 471 unfinished, but its single complete movement is a Classical jewel full of spontaneity. Prokofiev’s dizzying Quintet in G Minor was originally written as a ballet based on Parisian circus life and features aggressive and ever-changing rhythms. Brahms’ Third Piano Quartet is at times unsettled; an autobiographical work for Brahms, the music’s evolving moods reflect the composer’s own heartaches.

By popular demand, the Brentano String Quartet — Ensemble-in-Residence at the Yale School of Music — returns to the Robert Mann Chamber Music Series. The Times (London) raves, “Balance and intonation reach an almost unearthly level of perfection, yet there's nothing inhuman about these American musicians.” Brentano’s Romantic program includes Webern’s abstract Five Movements for String Quartet, Brahms’ sunny Third String Quartet, and Schubert’s poetic A-Minor Quartet, which borrows a theme from his incidental music to the play Rosamunde. 

The Robert Mann Chamber Music Series continues with a spotlight on the Festival’s own musicians. Mozart once considered his Quintet in E-Flat for Piano and Winds “the best work I have ever written;” its sense of spontaneity is beguiling. Dvořák’s Third String Quartet was one of his most successful compositions; like much of his most popular work, Op. 97 is flavored with melodies and rhythms he heard while visiting America, including various folk tunes and Native American drumming. The program begins with Nico Muhly’s minimalist Doublespeak, which was written as a gift for composer Philip Glass’ birthday and teems with stylistic rhythms and repetitions.

The Robert Mann Chamber Music Series is delighted to welcome “one of the greatest quartets of the last 100 years” (BBC Music Magazine), the Dover Quartet, Ensemble-in-Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music. Dover’s program includes Janacek’s emotionally charged “Kreutzer Sonata,” Schumann’s vigorous A-Minor Quartet, and finally Tchaikovsky’s noble First String Quartet.

The Robert Mann Chamber Music Series continues with a program featuring the Festival’s own musicians. Beethoven’s only quintet for piano and wind is rife with rhapsodic dialogue between its instruments. In Stravinsky’s bitter L’Histoire du Soldat, a WWI soldier makes a deal with the devil in order to know the future, but — after a rousing story animated by music — the cunning devil keeps the upper hand.