The Tokyo String Quartet's farewell tour in Toronto is crowned by Bartók

The Tokyo String Quartet played a kind of “meta-goodbye” concert this Saturday evening at 92Y. The performance, their last at this venue before the quartet is disbanded, featured three great composers’ own farewells, the final works written for string chamber ensembles by Schubert, Haydn, and Bartók.

Bartók used folk music to find his own voice as a composer of classical music. He roamed the Balkans, north Africa and the Middle East to rediscover models of what was really music to his ears, much in the same spirit as Picasso and others searched out models of primitive representations to refresh what we see.

The program features Maria Dueñas in Korngold's Violin Concerto and a moving tribute to LA native Michael Tilson Thomas

At the Konzerthaus Dortmund, Sir Antonio Pappano and the LSO are joined by Russian pianist Denis Kozhukhin to plunge into the depths of despair in Bernstein’s melancholic The Age of Anxiety. 

Balance issues mar an otherwise compelling programme from John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.