Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players Perform Transcriptions Given the plentitude of chamber music series in New York, it is easy to take low-visibility offerings for granted, despite the consistency, excellence and affordability of their programs. I had not been to a concert by the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in a long while when I attended Monday afternoon's program at Good Shepherd Church. I will not let so much time slip by again. The performers were top-notch, including well-known artists like Cynthia Phelps, the principal violist of the New York Philharmonic, and the pianist Alon Goldstein. The imaginative program was devoted to transcriptions by composers of other composers" pieces, including Franz Jakob Freystädtler's transcription for piano, violin, viola and cello of Mozart's great Quintet in E flat for Piano and Winds (K. 452). It was fascinating, and disorienting (in a good way), to hear this ingenious work in an unfamiliar instrumental guise. The homey church where these concerts take place, nestled on West 66th Street in the shadow of Lincoln Center, is an intimate and acoustically vibrant place for chamber music, with seating for about 150 people. The place was packed for Monday's program, the first of two performances that day. The series is presented as a tribute to Jens Nygaard, the conductor and pianist, a beloved New York fixture, who died at 69 in 2001. An Arkansas farm boy, Nygaard went on to become an inspiring maverick. There were dark periods when he grappled with mental instability and was sometimes homeless. In 1979, he founded the Jupiter Symphony, which offered programs mixing rarities and staples. He was a probing musician who attracted excellent, if meagerly paid, players, as well as loyal audiences. The orchestra could not go on without him. His companion, Mei Ying, organized the chamber music series in his memory and remains its manager. There are usually 20 programs per season, performed twice on Mondays. This one opened with a novelty: the String Quintet in C minor by Emanuel Aloys Förster, an Austrian composer acquainted with Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The quintet was performed in a transcription for wind quintet by Verne Reynolds, a respected horn player and composer who died in 2011. Before the performance, one of the musicians, the Norwegian horn player Karl Kramer, spoke about the practice of transcription in classical music, explaining that that there could be several rationales. Often a composer adapts a work for different instruments just to hear it with other colorings, he said. The Forster is a dark, elegant piece with a flowing, ornamented opening movement that anticipates the young Mendelssohn. The final movement, with its Mozartean theme and insistent accompaniment, is especially winning. The playing was splendid. A lively performance of the transcription of the Mozart quintet came next. Mr. Goldstein, who was the fine pianist in that work, then played a scintillating account of Liszt's Paraphrase on Verdi's "Rigoletto," which turns the well-known quartet from that opera into a fantastical piano piece. The concert ended with Brahms's Trio in A minor for clarinet, cello and piano, played in a version in which Brahms transcribed the clarinet part for viola. This score is essential to all clarinetists, who probably have mixed feelings about Brahms's pushing them aside in this version. The impressive performers here - Mr. Goldstein, Ms. Phelps and the cellist David Requiro - reveled in the transcription. Nygaard would have been delighted. The next program in the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players series is on Jan. 20 at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church, 152 West 66th Street, Manhattan; 212-799-1259, jupitersymphony.com.