Chamber music & wine

Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 2 opens the night, a piece so demanding he admitted it's "a trifle nasty to play." Two violins, two violas, and two cellos then take on Brahms' String Sextet No. 2, written in the aftermath of a failed relationship.

Mozart's Kegelstatt Trio, named for a bowling game he loved, opens the program. Beethoven's Gassenhauer Trio follows, built from a tune once whistled through Vienna's back alleys. Both feature clarinet, before five cellists close the night with 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. Bright Sheng's Hot Pepper, for marimba and violin, joins the program. The Los Angeles Times said it has "the feel of a Bartók rhapsody."

A Shostakovich string quartet swings between anxious fog and swarming intensity. It's 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 wrote his First String Quartet while nursing a broken heart, right as he found his future wife. It opens as a "funeral dirge" before dissolving into Hungarian folk themes. Dvořák's Serenade for Wind Instruments closes the program. He wrote it in two weeks, and Brahms called it his best work yet.

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