Details
St Andrew's Church
Church Street
Cobham
Surrey
KT11 3EJ
England
Programme
Gabriel Fauré – Piano Quartet no.2 in G minor, Op.45
~ Interval ~
Johannes Brahms – Piano Quartet no.1 in G minor, Op.25
Performers
Akiko Ono – violin / director
Nic Hughes – viola
Tamaki Sugimoto – Cello
Serene Koh – piano
Other concerts in this Series (+)
Programme Note
FAURÉ
Gabriel Fauré was one of the most influential of French composers, linking the end of Romanticism with the beginnings of the modern era. Comparatively little is known about the history of his Second Piano Quartet but it remains a much admired and superbly creative work. The first movement opens with beautiful, undulating piano phrases overlaid with complex melodies from the strings. Highly spirited movements follow that exude a sense of urgency, culminating in an electrifying crescendo in the final phrases. Fauré’s second piano quartet is truly original and considered by many to be a masterpiece.
BRAHMS
Johannes Brahms is one of the Romantic period's most revered and popular composers, considered steady but not afraid to explore. The Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25, was apparently conceived about 1857, and drafted in 1859 while Brahms was employed at the small ducal court of Detmold. It combines a troubled Romantic vocabulary with a poised, almost symphonic mastery of musical architecture. The finale displays unbridled gypsy music, revealing the young Brahms’s taste for vigorous horseplay.