SCHUBERT'S TROUT QUINTET AND HOLMBOE'S MUSIC FOR WINDS
Following the last year's summer concerts tradition, State Chamber Orchestra Sinfonietta Rīga, in a new collaboration with Zuzeum Art Centre, invites to a series of chamber music concerts in the very heart of Riga.
The series of chamber music concerts is part of the one-year anniversary programme of Zuzeum. Art historian, visual art medium specialist and exhibition curator Inga Šteimane, who is also a professionally trained pianist, will help to establish the connections between the main art and music events of the anniversary programme.
On the first meeting with the Jutland-born Danish composer and teacher Vagn Holmboe you may be surprised by the similarity of his musical language to that of Igor Stravinsky's neo-classical works. Danes consider Holmboe a follower of their greatest master Carl Nielsen; later he studied in Berlin with Paul Hindemith and was heavily influenced by Bela Bartok's work. On a trip to his wife's birthplace in Romania, Holmboe wrote down melodies for a number of folk songs, coming to the idea that folklore might be the most essential musical source. He continued his research of oral folklore in Greenland and Faroes, and folk music intonations echo in Holmboe's own creative work, which includes 14 symphonies, a series of 21 string quartets, several concertos for different solo instruments, and a number of chamber and choral works.
Vagn Holmboe is the author of two brass quintets. The first was composed in 1961, after the visit of the American Brass Quintet to Sweden. The composer has not commented on the creation of the opus; but just a year later the work was premiered in New York - by the above-mentioned ensemble.
The Austrian composer and songsmith Franz Schubert grew up in a household where music was part of a daily routine: his brothers played violin, his father - cello; the future composer himself was a violist, and so composed string quartets for performing at home from an early age. The piano quintet known as the Trout Quintet was born from the same tradition of home musical evenings that gained popularity in the 19th century. Schubert finished the work in the summer of 1819 on the request of amateur cellist Sylvester Paumgartner, but it was first published only in 1829, a year after the composer's passing. Paumgartner not only commissioned the piece but also suggested that Schubert includes variations on his earlier popular Lied "The Trout"; the song is recognizable in the fourth movement. The opus is performed by an unusual ensemble - together with the piano, instead of the classic string quartet (two violins, viola and cello) it calls for a violin, a viola, a cello and a double bass.
Vagn Holmboe
Brass Quintet No. 1, op. 79
I. Poco lento
II. Allegro
III. Adagio
IV. Vivace
Jenss Emīls Holms, trumpet, Edgars Švembergs, trumpet, Artūrs Šults, French horn, Artūrs Bērziņš, trombone, Raivis Māgurs, tuba
Franz Schubert
Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (The Trout Quintet)
I. Allegro vivace
II. Andante
III. Scherzo
IV. Andantino–Alegretto
V. Allegro giusto
Agnese Kanniņa, violin, Ivars Brīnums, viola, Kārlis Klotiņš, cello, Jānis Stafeckis, double bass, Rihards Plešanovs, piano