Chamber Music

Mendelssohn’s Stormy Sixth Quartet: The Schumann Quartet at Banff

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We often associate the music of Felix Mendelssohn with light, sparkling effervescence (as in the scherzos from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Octet) and a unique fusion of Romanticism with backward glances at the crystalline, contrapuntal classicism of J.S. Bach. The String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80, Mendelssohn’s final composition, inhabits a shockingly different world. Completed two months before the composer’s premature death at the age of 38 at a time when he was mourning the loss of his beloved …

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The Tesla Quartet Plays Haydn

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Last month, we explored excerpts from the Tesla Quartet’s newly-released debut album. In addition to music by Ravel and Stravinsky, the recording includes Franz Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major Op 54 No.2. Written in 1788, this piece is so daring and adventurous that it fits in perfectly on an album otherwise made up of twentieth century music. You’ll hear this spirit of adventure immediately in the Quartet’s opening bars. The home …

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New Release: The Tesla Quartet Plays Haydn, Ravel, Stravinsky

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The Tesla Quartet’s exciting debut album was released in September. The recording features two twentieth century works that look back at the classical era- Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major and Stravinsky’s Concertino for String Quartet- as well as the bold, innovative String Quartet in C Major, Op.54 No.2 by Franz Joseph Haydn, who is often called the “father of the string quartet.” Additionally, we hear three Ravel piano miniatures- Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn, Menuet antique, and Menuet …

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Clara Schumann “Romances for Violin and Piano”: Stefan Jackiw

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Last week, I had the pleasure of performing with Stefan Jackiw. The young American violinist played the Beethoven Concerto with the Williamsburg (VA) Symphony Orchestra. Jackiw’s playing is characterized by an unusual sense of elegance and refinement. He paints with a wide array of colors and dynamics. In the most intimate passages of the slow movement of the Beethoven, he was not afraid to play just above a whisper. Jackiw’s elegant and stylish approach …

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Brahms’ “Rain Song” and the First Violin Sonata

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Regenlied (“Rain Song”) is the third of Brahms’ 8 Lieder, Op. 59, published in 1873. The text by Klaus Groth is a wistful remembrance of the dreams and sense of awe experienced in childhood. The fourth song in the set, Nachklang (“Lingering Sound”) returns to the same thematic material. In this text, raindrops are equated with tears. In both songs, the piano evokes the patter of gently falling rain. Notice the way the three-note dotted rhythm …

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Mozart and the Tragic Key of G Minor

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Mozart wrote 41 numbered symphonies. Of these, only two are rooted in a minor key- in both cases G minor. The first is the exuberant, fiery Symphony No. 25, which we heard last week. The second and more famous is the “Great” G minor Symphony No. 40.  Last Friday’s post inspired me to consider the uniquely tragic significance of G minor throughout Mozart’s music. This is the key to which Mozart turns in the second …

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Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2: The Takács Quartet and Andreas Haefliger

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The music of Antonín Dvořák is often filled with a quiet, wistful nostalgia, an embrace of nature, and subtle references to Czech folksongs. We hear all of this in the Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, a work of profound depth and monumental scale which Dvořák composed in 1887, between the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies. This fully mature music grew out of the composer’s unsuccessful attempt to revise an earlier piano quintet. In the …

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