Chamber music & wine

Two violins, two violas, and two cellos take on Brahms' String Sextet No. 2, written in the aftermath of a failed relationship, after Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 2 opens the night. Even Mendelssohn admitted his own trio is "a trifle nasty to play."

Two nicknamed trios featuring clarinet, Mozart's Kegelstatt, named for a bowling game the composer loved, and Beethoven's Gassenhauer, built from a tune once whistled through Vienna's back alleys, open the program before five cellists take on a hair-raising arrangement of Schubert's Erlkönig.

Yi-Wen Jiang's string quartet arrangements of Chinese folk melodies anchor this Year of the Goat celebration, alongside Bright Sheng's Hot Pepper, a piece for marimba and violin the Los Angeles Times described as having "the feel of a Bartók rhapsody."

A Shostakovich string quartet swings between anxious fog and swarming intensity, paired with a Prokofiev quartet written after his wartime evacuation to the Caucasus Mountains. French composers Ibert, Tansman, and Jolivet round out the second half.

Bartók's First String Quartet, written while he nursed a broken heart and found his future wife, opens as a "funeral dirge" before dissolving into Hungarian folk themes. Dvořák's Serenade for Wind Instruments, composed in two weeks and praised by Brahms as his best work yet, closes the program.

Musicians from the LA Phil scale down to small ensembles for an evening built around the range and influence of British composers, from the grandeur of a full concert stage to the intimacy of a handful of players.