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Let Joys Abound! New York
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
02/05/2026 -
Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 8, “Le Soir”
Osvaldo Golijov: Ever Yours
Arvo Pärt: In Spem
Felix Mendelssohn: Octet in E‑flat Major, Opus 20
The Knights, Colin Jacobsen (Artistic Director, Violinist), Eric Jacobsen (Music Director (Artistic Director, Conductor)
The Knights (© Shervin Lainez)
“Vitality, Love and Attention. Somebody said that true love is attention. ‘Love-is-Attention’ is what connects Haydn and Van Gogh. That concentrated attention that unveils new and new dimensions in what we all see and hear, but, many times, we fail to notice until they notice. And they invite us to notice too.”
Osvaldo Golijov, On Ever Yours
Should President What’s-His-Name sign yet another Executive Order, let us pray it commands performers of Mendelssohn’s Octet to play that finale with all the vibrating, tingling, quavers and quivers emanating from the mind of the 15‑year‑old composer himself.
The Knights, a group of professionals performing as an ensemble for almost two decades, has that singular frisson the work demands. They don’t look like 15‑year‑olds any more, but they possess similar enthusiasm, similar expertise.
Not that the Octet was all fun and games. Mendelssohn wrote that it should be played “like a symphony”. He wasn’t referring to Beethoven, Schubert or even Mozart, of course, but he did write his symphonies with serious scholarship. Thus, The Knights played the opening with measured amiability, and the Andante with metric (though hardly lachrymose) introspection.
With the Scherzo, that young composer, barely older than his Bar Mitzvah years, showed honest joy. Soft and staccato, or joltingly fast, it led to that enchanting Finale.
Not only joyful, but a bit mischievous, Haydn style, with a quote from Messiah. And it showed The Knights with exemplary control of all that intricate counterpoint.
The first half of the program was devoted to Joseph Haydn himself, with one Ne York premiere almost as surprising as Papa’s Le Soir.
Even more than the Mendelssohn, the youngish (29 years old) composer seemed to have lost a game of Shafkopf with his double‑bassist and flutist, giving both First Chair players many a solo. This was The Knights frolicking along, plunging ahead without an intro, into a gigue (sounding more like a jig!), with the flute whizzing up and down with virtuosic abandon.
Could the Esterhazy orchestra have offered such joy? A few Lagers, and they certainly would have followed Haydn’s lead. Nor did last night’s ensemble eschew such invention. Opening with a violin duet, then cello‑bassoon duet, ending with a kind of Mozartean aria.
Until then, the audience was respectful. Sporadic applause in Zankel Hall came appropriately for the Scherzo. Not for the full ensemble (which deserved it), but for First Double Bassist Lizzie Burns, taking over the Trio with double‑bass swoops and then trying to monopolize the rest of the movement.
Nor did the composer, in his wickedly Puckish mood, stop there. Instead of a mere Presto finale, he labeled it La Tempesta.
Now Le Soir was hardly moody sunset moodiness Bartók style. Rather, the picture was a jolly group of musicians, celebrating an “Evening’s” entertainment, “The Storm” was that same group inside, celebrating wind and raindrops and storm, achieved with solo violin, cello and again, our wonderful flute with the ensemble.
The second work was dedicated to Haydn. But we come to Oswaldo Golijov’s work later.
The only piece not entirely gleeful–though certainly beatific–was Arvo Pärt’s In Spem (“In the Hope”). As usual, the composer had arranged this for several ensemble. Here, though, The Knights’ winds, horn and strings easily did what Pärt does best. First solos, increasing with duets and trios in his modern/medieval/Ars Nova harmonies, to end with the full ensemble concluding with what would sound ecstatic in the cathedrals of Chartres or St. Mark’s.
The surprise was Golijov’s Ever Yours for The Knights strings. The work was written for a dying close musician friend, and annotator Harry Haskell described it with fitting detail.
Yet what did we have here? Golijov wrote it with four happy movements, each based on a Haydn string quartet, each singing with charm and positive pleasure.
Then, so characteristically for this most eclectic composer, we ended with an East European or Sephardic dance, which exploded into pure jazz. A close collaborator with The Knights, Mr. Golijov gave a taped intro for the premiere.
Still one must ask whether such merriment was appropriate for a deathbed.
The obvious answer: On a deathbed, who the hell wants a Requiem? Personally I’d plunk for a Golijov–and if at all possible, the ever‑young Knights themselves.
Harry Rolnick
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