Menahem Pressler
A living legacy at
Chamber Music Detroit
Steve Update - September 25, 2023
Dear Friends,
A couple of weeks ago, we launched our 80th Season with a concert devoted to one of today’s greatest musical visionaries, composer Caroline Shaw.
Today, I want to devote a blog post to a towering musical visionary not found on our 80th Signature Series, the pianist, teacher, and master chamber musician, Menahem Pressler. Why? Because his immense musical influence can be heard and felt throughout this season’s concerts, as it has in every season since the Beaux Arts Trio’s first performance for the Chamber Music Society of Detroit more than 50 years ago.
As many of you know, Menahem Pressler passed away on May 6th this year, just a half-year from his 100th birthday. But his enduring legacy lives on in a thousand ways. Here are just a few.
It was Menahem Pressler who first introduced me to the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, when I was one of the few lucky pianists to earn a place in his doctoral class at Indiana University. At the end of each lesson Menahem would pull out his large scheduling book and turn past whole pages marked simply “Boston” or “Seoul” or “Paris” to find the next day filled with lesson appointments. I still remember the time that next-lesson page sat opposite another marked “Detroit.” When I asked him about it, he told me about a wonderful group of chamber music lovers, led by a pediatric dentist (Tiny Konikow, pictured), and with a medical doctor as its page turner (Henry Shevitz)!
Little did I know that, years later, I would be filling Tiny's shoes at Chamber Music Detroit, and one of just two of Menahem's doctoral graduates to settle here in Michigan. On October 1, I will have been here 12½ years – exactly half the 25 years Dr. Konikow served this organization as its president. (In case you’re curious, the only other Pressler doctoral graduate living in Michigan is Dr. George Fee, creator of his own private music academy in Midland.)
For decades, Menahem Pressler was a regular here, giving more than 30 performances for the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, with the Beaux Arts Trio and in other combinations. To this day, no single pianist has ever performed more often for this organization!
Two of his performances were on my watch: a memorable 2012 performance of Schubert’s Winterreise with tenor Christophe Prégardien, and a 2015 concert when he inserted a challenging Schubert sonata into the program at the last minute to accommodate another ailing vocal colleague.
In this 80th season, Menahem Pressler’s influence can be felt most keenly in two of Chamber Music Detroit's Signature Series concerts:
October 14 - Pacifica Quartet
Next month we have a performance by the Pacifica Quartet, Menahem Pressler’s devoted colleagues on the faculty at Indiana University, and a longtime favorite among his many collaborators. Pacifica cellist Brandon Vamos even had his IU teaching studio right across the hall! The Pacifica’s program includes the late Beethoven string quartet, Op. 132, with its movingly autobiographical Heiliger Dankgesang – song of Thanksgiving. Like so many Pressler collaborators now in their prime, the musicianship of the “Pacificas” has been deeply touched by their performance experiences with him. The concert is on Saturday evening, October 14 at 8:00 pm at the Seligman PAC.
The Pacifica Quartet will be joined on the first half of their concert by Metropolitan Opera soprano Karen Slack in a Detroit premiere of a new composition by James Lee III that was co-commissioned by Chamber Music Detroit, Carnegie Hall, and others.
January 27 - Daniel Hope
The Pressler legacy will be on fullest display in January, when violinist Daniel Hope performs a recital with the young pianist Maxim Vardo. In 2002 (the year I finished my doctorate), a then-29-year-old Daniel Hope joined Menahem Pressler and cellist Antônio Meneses as the last – arguably the best – violinist ever to play in the Beaux Arts Trio. I heard this version of the Beaux Arts several times, including their unforgettable 2008 final performance at Tanglewood in August 2008.
When I became president of the Chamber Music Society of Detroit just three years later, it broke my heart to learn that this wonderful audience, with such a deep historical connection to Pressler and the Beaux Arts Trio, had somehow missed the opportunity to hear them in their final, superb, Pressler-Hope-Meneses configuration.
On Saturday evening, January 27, 2024 at 8:00 pm, I will complete the personal mission I began when I first made that surprising discovery: to bring to this audience concerts that highlight the members of the last, best version of the Beaux Arts Trio: 2012 and 2015 by Menahem Pressler himself, 2018 by Antônio Meneses, and now, finally, Daniel Hope.
I will have much more to say later about Daniel’s exquisite recital program, and about the special way we will be honoring Menahem Pressler that evening. But for now, let me urge you to mark your calendar boldly for what promises to be one of the most moving experiences of this 80th anniversary season.
There’s more to come this season – these artists are just the tip of the iceberg! So I hope you will stay tuned for more information, and join us – in person or online – for some of the best chamber music the world has to offer.
Here's the thing: the biggest influence of Menahem Pressler on Chamber Music Detroit – and on the chamber music lovers all around the world – is found in the musical values he instilled in everyone who heard him, studied with him, collaborated with him. My decade-plus of study with Menahem ended when I completed my doctorate in 2002, except for one last lesson I had with him in 2015 on Beethoven’s Sonata No. 31, Op. 110. Like the Heiliger Dankgesang in the Op. 132 string quartet, Op. 110 is deeply autobiographical, revealing the many sides of Beethoven’s personality and his belief in the power of redemption through music. Even at 92 years old – or perhaps because of it – Menahem overwhelmed me that day with his energetic passion for every moment of the piece, not a single note or gesture passing by without thought, attention, and above all, love.
In new ways I discover every day, Menahem Pressler continues to live at the core of my musical conscience, a true visionary whose impact will continue to shape the music world he knew and loved for decades to come – including my next 12½ years at Chamber Music Detroit!
Please join us for this incredible, wonderful, memorable 80th season.
Move closer … and be moved.
Warmly,
Steve Wogaman, President
Chamber Music Detroit
313-335-3350, ext. 4 or Steve@CMDetroit.org
