Tag: chamber music

  • PROGRAM NOTES: BRAHMS FEST CONCERTS 1 & 2
  • PROGRAM NOTES: CHIAROSCURO QUARTET
  • PROGRAM NOTES: DORIC STRING QUARTET WITH MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN

    PROGRAM NOTES: DORIC STRING QUARTET WITH MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN

    Jean Sibelius Quartet in D minor  Op. 56  Voces Intimae Sibelius’ Quartet in D minor was completed in 1909 and has five movements, symmetrically arranged in an arch form around the lyrical third-movement Adagio, with scherzos on either side separating it from the opening movement and finale. The name Voces Intimae derives from a Latin…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: SHEKU AND ISATA KANNEH-MASON

    PROGRAM NOTES: SHEKU AND ISATA KANNEH-MASON

    Ludwig van Beethoven 12 Variations on “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” from The Magic Flute  Op. 66 Beethoven’s set of variations on a theme from Mozart’s Magic Flute features twelve sharply chiselled operatic duets between piano and cello, widely differentiated in character like the comic personalities in the Singspiel from which the theme is derived. Audiences…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: DANISH STRING QUARTET

    PROGRAM NOTES: DANISH STRING QUARTET

    Johann Sebastian Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier Book I Fugue No. 16 in G minor BWV 861 (arr. Förster) If you have ever happened to see one of those cooking shows in which a chef is challenged to create an entire meal—appetizer, entrée and dessert—out of a minimum of ingredients (an ox-tail, say, and a banana)…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: Z.E.N. TRIO

    PROGRAM NOTES: Z.E.N. TRIO

    Franz Schubert Notturno in E-flat major  Op. 148 Schubert’s Adagio for Piano Trio D 897 was composed in 1827 but only published decades later, under the publisher’s title Notturno. And indeed, the opening section does conjure up images of nighttime serenity, with its heavenly texture of harp-like arpeggios in the piano supporting a hypnotic melody…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: NIKKI AND TIMMY CHOOI AND ANGELA CHENG

    PROGRAM NOTES: NIKKI AND TIMMY CHOOI AND ANGELA CHENG

    Claude Debussy Sonata in G minor for violin and piano The sound of Debussy’s music confounded many of his contemporaries. From a tonal point of view, it floated in stasis in a world of pastel sounds that arrived at their destination more by whim than by design. How, they asked, could what he composed actually…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: TETZLAFF-TETZLAFF-VOGT TRIO

    PROGRAM NOTES: TETZLAFF-TETZLAFF-VOGT TRIO

    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat Major K 502 The piano trio developed out of the ‘accompanied’ keyboard sonata, a makeshift compositional genre that attempted to compensate for the weak ‘tinkly’ tone of the early fortepiano (forerunner of the modern pianoforte) by the addition of a violin to reinforce the singing line…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: CASTALIAN STRING QUARTET

    PROGRAM NOTES: CASTALIAN STRING QUARTET

    Franz Joseph Haydn String Quartet in D, Op. 76 No. 5 Having recently returned from his hugely successful visits to England and been liberated from financial woes, Haydn composed a set of six String Quartets, Op. 76 which were commissioned by Hungarian Count, Joseph Erdödy in 1797. Deviating from more traditional forms and establishing a…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: ARCANTO QUARTET

    PROGRAM NOTES: ARCANTO QUARTET

    This evening the Arcanto Quartet offers us a chance to explore chamber music from the end of the 17th century to the recent past, sampling music for four players by Henry Purcell (1659–95), Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), and Benjamin Britten (1913-1976).   Henry Purcell Long before the primacy of the string quartet, consort music for…