Chamber Music: The Revelers

The plans were enough to prostrate the most gallant music manager. Isaac Stern, Leonard Rose and Eugene Istomin—three top-dollar virtuosos—had teamed up to make chamber music together. Their audience might shrink to the size of the small halls in which trios usually play—and the take, of course, would be split three ways. But the trio had played an intriguing handful of concerts in the past, and bound by 20 years' friendship, they defiantly formed their alliance. Last week, solidly established as the best in 50 years, the Stern-Rose-Istomin Trio played their fifth sell-out concert of the season to a...