photo by: Valentin Georgiev
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Škampa Quartet
Perelman Theater| Wednesday, March 20 | 8pm | buy tickets! |
Mozart: Quartet in B-flat Major, K. 589
Beethoven: Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 74, 'Harp'
Intermission
Smetana: Quartet in E Minor, 'From My Life'
The Škampa Quartet, which made its international mark nearly two decades ago and its outstanding PCMS debut in the late 90s, now returns to present a program of three classic chamber music works. Opening the program is Mozart's 'Prussian' Quartet, K. 589—a piece packed with elegant themes and constructed with dazzling brilliance. This is followed by Beethoven's beloved Quartet in E-flat Major, Op.74—labeled "The Harp" on account of some arpeggiated pizzicato passages in the first movement. The evening ends with music from the ensemble's Czech homeland with Smetana's biographical string quartet from the end of his life. This quartet spans a wide range of distinctive music featuring Bohemian dance in the polka of the second movement and a tender love song to his departed first wife in the third movement. It has been over five years since the Škampa has appeared in Philadelphia, now is a chance to see what the Los Angeles Times recently lauded as: 'playing with a laudable combination of passion and finesse...The Czech musicians perform as a unit, one which thinks together, yet the individual players retain their personalities.'
6:45pm - 7:30pm: Free Pre-concert Lecture in Merck Education Center (Tier II) with Jonathan Coopersmith
All artists and programs subject to change.