Schumann & Tchaikovsky Delights
Opus One Piano Quartet – featuring revered artists Ida Kavafian, Anne-Marie McDermott, Steven Tenenbom, and Peter Wiley – and former Chamber Music Northwest Protégé ensemble the Rolston String Quartet, known for its “electrifying performance(s)” (Strings Magazine), perform masterworks by Schumann and Tchaikovsky.
Premieres June 25 @ 7 pm PT
Available through June 26 @ 11:59 pm PT
Program
Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.
- R. SCHUMANN Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47
ROBERT SCHUMANN Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47
I. Sostenuto assai – Allegro ma non troppo
II. Scherzo: Molto vivace
III. Andante cantabile
IV. Finale: VivaceWhen he wrote music, Robert Schumann tended to focus on one genre at a time; in the summer of 1842 he turned his attention to chamber works. By the end of 1842, Schumann had completed three string quartets, a piano quintet, a piano quartet, and his Op. 88 Phantasiestücke for piano, violin, and cello.
The Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47 reflects Beethoven’s influence on Schumann in the four-note motif that dominates the opening movement. It opens the slow introduction, then announces itself more forcefully in the Allegro ma non troppo. From this concise fragment Schumann generates vigorous, propulsive phrases full of energy and excitement. The energy carries into the brief Scherzo, which features a furtive, whispery theme that contrasts with a lyrical countertheme. In the Andante cantabile, the cello presents one of Schumann’s most singable instrumental melodies, a warm graceful theme of love and longing. This theme becomes a duet and then repeats in between contrasting interludes in which the string quartet comes into its own, with the piano accompanying. The four-note theme of the first movement, now shortened to three notes, launches the Vivace. The viola presents a second theme, a fugue subject played by all the instruments. Schumann reveals his contrapuntal ingenuity in combining this fugue with the three-note opener and additional lyrical phrases that recall the Andante cantabile. The quartet ends with a joyous rush of energy.
When Op. 47 premiered in December 1844 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, a critic for the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung described it as “... a piece full of spirit and vitality which, especially in the two inside movements, was most lovely and appealing, uniting a wealth of beautiful musical ideas with soaring flights of imagination. It will surely be received with great applause everywhere, as it was here.”
—© Elizabeth Schwartz
- TCHAIKOVSKY String Sextet in D Minor, Op. 70 (“Souvenir de Florence”)
Rolston String Quartet
Yura Lee, viola
Sophie Shao, celloOriginally performed on Tuesday, July 2nd, 2019｜Lincoln Performance Hall @ 8pm
See our Program Book for program notes.