photo by: Pete Checchia
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Musicians From Marlboro III
Perelman Theater| Wednesday, May 8 | 8pm | buy tickets! |
Stravinsky: Concertino for Quartet
Britten: Quartet No. 3, Op. 94
Intermission
Brahms: Piano Quartet in A Major, Op. 26
Musicians from Marlboro, the touring extension of the renowned Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, offers audiences across North America a sample of the varied programs and spirit of music making so characteristic of Marlboro, prompting the Washington Post to describe Musicians from Marlboro as 'a virtual guarantee of musical excellence", and The New York Times to depict it as 'Extraordinary… rising stars and music legends play side by side.' Alex Ross, in a ten-page feature article in The New Yorker magazine described Marlboro as 'the classical world's most coveted retreat.' The May 2013 Tour features: Emilie-Anne Gendron, violin; Bella Hristova, violin; Danbi Um, violin; Hsin-Yun Huang, viola; Gabriel Cabezas, cello; Angela Park, cello; Matan Porat, piano.
Featuring several musicians who have attended the Curtis Institute, this tour program highlights two very distinct chamber music gems in Britten's third string quartet—even with its divertimento-like structure its starting point is, rather, the fantasy and virtuosity of the Cello Suites, and it belongs to their essentially serious world. The first movement is an elegiac Andante: two sardonic Scherzi frame and Adagio, whose pure and transparent tonality finds and apotheosis in the Finale -- a slowly moving and wonderfully relaxed passacaglia, composed in Venice. The work was finished in November 1975 (shortly before the composer's death). And Brahms' A Major Piano Quartet (composed at the same time as his first Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op. 25)—reflects a maturity, grace, and confidence that Brahms had achieved by dedication to his craft and with no small measure of difficulty. He began to sketch his Piano Quartet No. 2 shortly after Schumann's death five years before its premiere. Music critics find many elements in this quartet—reflections of Schubert, Schumann, and Vienna; a reference to a then-popular 'schmaltzy' waltz in the second movement; and a 'slight Gypsy tint' in the fourth (Richard Rodda, John Keillor).
6:45pm - 7:30pm: Free Pre-concert Lecture in the Comcast Circle (Tier I) with Richard Freedman
All artists and programs subject to change.