St. Lawrence String Quartet & Anne-Marie McDermott

For its latest appearance on the Duke Performances stage, the St. Lawrence String Quartet and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott deviate from the normal piano quintet repertory. Sandwiched between string quartets by Haydn and Debussy are works by Amy Beach and Olivier Messiaen. The Beach piece, written in 1908 when the American was at her prime, melds Mendelssohnian lyricism with impressionistic coloration. And Messiaen’s Pièce is his final completed work, a summation, in miniature, of his vast musical world. —Dan Ruccia