The Frick’s Gift to New York: A Superb New Concert Hall

Most everything at the Frick Collection, which reopened last month after a nearly five-year renovation, is the same as it was, but better.

Hand-loomed velvet wall coverings have been replaced, making Vermeers and Rembrandts pop with fresh vibrancy. Chandeliers and skylights have been cleaned. It’s the museum we knew, with the grime wiped away.

What a relief. For almost a century, the jewel-box Frick has held a special place in the city’s heart. Why mess with perfection?

But sometimes messing around is worthwhile. The public can now enter the Frick family’s upstairs living quarters, turned into intimate galleries. And the museum has returned bearing another gift: a superb space for music, which has swiftly become one of the best places to hear chamber performances in New York City.

The Frick’s well-loved concert series has moved from an ovoid room off the garden court, where performances took place since the 1930s, to a new, 220-seat, curved-amphitheater auditorium two stories underground. In a debut burst of six concerts over two weeks, the theater was put through its paces.