Chamber Concert Vienna Philharmonic

Chamber concert: Classic Vienna

Chamber Concert

Composed in 1785, Mozart’s K 478 was his first contribution to the piano quartet genre. The emotionality of the opening movement’s minore key and the subtly wrought dialogue between strings and piano proclaim its high artistic standards. No less brilliant is the Piano Quartet composed 100 years later by the young Richard Strauss. In his youthful élan he vacillates between engagement with romantic models (especially Brahms) and harbingers of his own style. The ennoblement of the clarinet as a chamber music instrument takes us back to Mozart. To the present day, many works owe their existence to the challenge of blending its timbre with the strings. The same is true of Veress’s Trio of 1972 and Penderecki’s Quartet of 1993, whose elegiac finale also pays tribute to Schubert’s C major Quintet.

Chamber Concert

Composed in 1785, Mozart’s K 478 was his first contribution to the piano quartet genre. The emotionality of the opening movement’s minore key and the subtly wrought dialogue between strings and piano proclaim its high artistic standards. No less brilliant is the Piano Quartet composed 100 years later by the young Richard Strauss. In his youthful élan he vacillates between engagement with romantic models (especially Brahms) and harbingers of his own style. The ennoblement of the clarinet as a chamber music instrument takes us back to Mozart. To the present day, many works owe their existence to the challenge of blending its timbre with the strings. The same is true of Veress’s Trio of 1972 and Penderecki’s Quartet of 1993, whose elegiac finale also pays tribute to Schubert’s C major Quintet.

Chamber Concert

This evening of Nordic chamber music covers a wide range of styles by composers from four Scandinavian countries. The historical starting point is the Septet for Winds and Strings, written in 1817 by the Swedish romantic composer Franz Berwald. It is unmistakably modelled on Beethoven’s masterpiece for the same combination of instruments. Grieg’s unfinished F major String Quartet of 1891 exudes a lilting charm and a Norwegian hue, while the E flat major Quartet by his Danish colleague Carl Nielsen (1898) strikes out on noticeably more modern paths. Rounding off the programme are two pièces de occasion: an enchanting Serenade with a touch of Vienna, composed by Sibelius during a holiday on Finland’s Archipelago Sea, and a humorous “unrequited” nocturnal serenade by Carl Nielsen, written during a concert tour in 1914.

Chamber Concert

This evening of Nordic chamber music covers a wide range of styles by composers from four Scandinavian countries. The historical starting point is the Septet for Winds and Strings, written in 1817 by the Swedish romantic composer Franz Berwald. It is unmistakably modelled on Beethoven’s masterpiece for the same combination of instruments. Grieg’s unfinished F major String Quartet of 1891 exudes a lilting charm and a Norwegian hue, while the E flat major Quartet by his Danish colleague Carl Nielsen (1898) strikes out on noticeably more modern paths. Rounding off the programme are two pièces de occasion: an enchanting Serenade with a touch of Vienna, composed by Sibelius during a holiday on Finland’s Archipelago Sea, and a humorous “unrequited” nocturnal serenade by Carl Nielsen, written during a concert tour in 1914.

Chamber Concert

“Sorrow always – upward glance – celestial dew – recollection”: thus the words that Anton Webern set in his aphoristically short work for soprano and string quartet. They also stand as a motto for this unusual and cleverly assembled programme. The works in the first section come from completely different eras and interlock like meditations – devout, contemplative, ravishingly beautiful, yet pervaded by a “sweet” tone of sorrow. Schubert’s G major Quartet also directs its gaze into unknown dimensions. Few works of chamber music sustain the combination of sorrow and supplication with such existential force and urgency as this unique visionary creation from the year 1826.

Chamber Concert

“Sorrow always – upward glance – celestial dew – recollection”: thus the words that Anton Webern set in his aphoristically short work for soprano and string quartet. They also stand as a motto for this unusual and cleverly assembled programme. The works in the first section come from completely different eras and interlock like meditations – devout, contemplative, ravishingly beautiful, yet pervaded by a “sweet” tone of sorrow. Schubert’s G major Quartet also directs its gaze into unknown dimensions. Few works of chamber music sustain the combination of sorrow and supplication with such existential force and urgency as this unique visionary creation from the year 1826.

Chamber Concert

A milestone of 20th-century chamber music and a top-notch blend of high and applied art: this programme deftly combines two completely different musical universes. Olivier Messiaen’s 45-minute mystical vision of the “end of time”, inspired by his reading of the Book of Revelation, leads the listener into a realm of the eternal and infinite. This meditation, brought about with ingenious rhythmic devices, contrasts with the first part of the programme under the banner of “lived music”. Here the Jewish-American composer Paul Schoenfield (1947- ) draws on a wide range of musical experiences – jazz, klezmer, ancient Hassidic melodies – combining them with classical stylistic elements and instrumental virtuosity.

Chamber Concert

A milestone of 20th-century chamber music and a top-notch blend of high and applied art: this programme deftly combines two completely different musical universes. Olivier Messiaen’s 45-minute mystical vision of the “end of time”, inspired by his reading of the Book of Revelation, leads the listener into a realm of the eternal and infinite. This meditation, brought about with ingenious rhythmic devices, contrasts with the first part of the programme under the banner of “lived music”. Here the Jewish-American composer Paul Schoenfield (1947- ) draws on a wide range of musical experiences – jazz, klezmer, ancient Hassidic melodies – combining them with classical stylistic elements and instrumental virtuosity.

Chamber Concert

One instrument crops up with striking frequency in French music: the harp. Magdalena Hoffmann, in Debussy’s Danse sacrée et danse profane, invokes this special Debussyan inflection on her instrument, joined by a string quartet. She also creates a close but delicate exchange with the violin in Camille Saint-Saëns’s Fantaisie. But no less essential to the special French sound is the flute: when it enters an intimate dialogue with the viola in Ibert’s Interludes, the conversation takes place against the undulating ground of a harp. Wave-like arpeggios for the harp are also heard in Quintet for Harp, Flute, Violin, Viola and Cello by the composer and admiral Jean Cras, a work perhaps inspired by his long journeys at sea. The 20th-century music of Cras, Debussy and Ibert receives an exciting contemporary counterpart in Guillaume Connesson’s String Quartet, composed in 2008.