Chamber Music +

On Monday, January 2nd, 1911, there was an historic concert in Munich. The program was devoted entirely to the music of Arnold Schönberg: two string quartets, five lieder, and three short pieces for piano. I doubt anyone in the audience at the time would have considered the concert significant, let alone historic, except for Schönberg and his circle – and one man who had recently arrived in Munich, Wassily Kandinsky. He was so taken with Schoenberg's music that he made this sketch for a painting: The sketch indicates colors for the final work: 'Schw[arz]' = black for the piano; 'gelb' = yellow for a mass or large space on the lower right; and  'w[eiß]'  = white for the two posts and the dress of the pianist, Etta Werndorff (see Schönberg's more figurative portrait of Werndorff below). Etta Werndorff, pianist Portrait by Arnold Schönberg Kandinsky completed the painting only a couple of days later. In both sketch and painting, the shapes...

Antonin Dvořák (1841–1904) Last night I heard the  Dvořák E-flat Piano Quartet at Garth Newel Music Center  in the first concert of their 2017 summer season. As often as I have heard this quartet over the years, I am still surprised at how new it sounds to me with each hearing. The craftsmanship and sheer energy are a marvel.  This morning I recalled that about fifteen years ago I wrote liner notes for this work and the Martinů First Piano Quartet which were included on a CD the Garth Newel Piano Quartet recorded. Below is the essay I wrote for the  Dvořák. Since I can't find the GNPQ recording anywhere on the web now, I've included a 2014 performance by Mistral. ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ 1889: the year Antonin Dvořák composed his Piano Quartet in E-­flat major and the eve of the twentieth century. Most of the leading early and middle romantics, Beethoven, Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Wagner, were dead; and in 1889 Brahms had privately ...