Three decades in, the Pacifica Quartet still programs concerts as if each one has something to prove. Their July 26 appearance at Maverick Concert Hall makes that case with a three-work span: Haydn’s Op. 33 No. 1, Korngold’s Second Quartet from 1934, and Beethoven’s Op. 130 with the Grosse Fuge — the finale that still sounds like it arrived from a different century.
About the Show
The Pacifica Quartet — Simin Ganatra and Austin Hartman on violins, Mark Holloway on viola, Brandon Vamos on cello — has built its standing on interpretive commitment of exactly the kind this program demands. Ganatra has led the quartet on first violin since its 1994 founding; the ensemble has accumulated multiple Grammy Awards for Best Chamber Music Performance, with Grammy-winning recordings of the complete Shostakovich and Elliott Carter cycles and a 2024 Grammy nomination for American Stories on Cedille Records. Musical America named them Ensemble of the Year in 2009. The New York Times has called their playing “engrossing, characterful… with a luminescent tranquillity [and] spine-tingling intensity”; Gramophone noted “warmth of phrasing, dynamic control and superbly coordinated ensemble balance.”
The Woodstock date is the third stop in a multi-state summer run (Virginia dates on July 24 and 25 preceded it), and the Korngold Second Quartet threads through multiple stops as a featured work. That programming choice is telling: the Korngold doesn’t carry the same repertoire saturation as the Haydn or Beethoven flanking it, and featuring it prominently across summer dates is an act of advocacy as much as selection.
The Beethoven closes the afternoon. Op. 130 with the Grosse Fuge is not a work that resolves in any conventional sense; the fugue remains one of the more demanding conclusions in the string quartet repertoire. The Pacifica has chosen it to close the program regardless — the kind of programming decision that distinguishes an ensemble with something to say from one that plays it safe.
Venue & Logistics
Maverick Concert Hall is a historic outdoor pavilion in Woodstock, part of the Hudson Valley summer festival calendar. An ensemble that regularly appears at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center performing in a 400-seat outdoor setting carries its own kind of occasion. Chamber music at 4 p.m. in open air carries different acoustic conditions than an indoor stage. Part of what Maverick offers is precisely that difference.
Tickets
Reserved hall seats are $55 or $35; partial-obstruction seats are $30 or $27. General admission outdoors is $20; student tickets are $10. The concert runs 4–6 p.m. Tickets are available via Tix.com. Buy tickets