Concert Review: The Chiaroscuro Quartet

Tuesday, November 5, 2024 in the Mary Seaton Room at Kleinhans Music Hall

The Chiaroscuro String Quartet concluded its North American tour with an Election Night concert that matched the drama of the moment. The Quartet’s personnel, the concert’s program, and the ensemble’s discography are at the bottom of this review.

A capacity audience of approximately 700 filled Kleinhans Music Hall’s Mary Seaton Room for the second concert in the Buffalo Chamber Music Society’s 101st season (it doesn’t look a day over a century).

The Chiaroscuro String Quartet, November 5, 2024 at The Mary Seaton Room, Kleinhans Music Hall. © Frank Housh

Henry Purcell and The English Baroque

The concert began with three “Fantasias” by English Baroque composer Henry Purcell, a compositional form that predated the string quartet and were written for the viol family, the immediate evolutionary ancestor of the violin, viola, cello, and bass.

Never intended for publication and performance, Purcell's wrote his 15 Fantasias in the summer of 1680 as exercises in the emerging style of “common tona…