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Chamber music matinée 3

Past Event
Sun, 2. February 2025 | 11:15 UhrOrchesterhaus Kriens
Program
  • Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957)

    • String Quartet No. 3 in D major op. 34 (1945)

  • Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)

    • String Quintet in E flat major op. 97 (1893)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was undoubtedly a child prodigy. And from an early age, so to speak: The 13-year-old’s compositions caused such a sensation in the Viennese music world that Gustav Mahler declared him a genius without further ado. Later, forced into exile in the USA following Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany, he became one of the most important and recognized founders of Hollywood film music. Unfortunately, this was not without consequences for his reputation and for his “serious” compositions, which increasingly fell into the twilight and were no longer considered to be artistically serious without reservation. What a gigantic misjudgment! His three string quartets are undoubtedly masterpieces and can be described as modern chamber music tone poems. As a fierce opponent of serialism, Korngold was determined to expand the boundaries of tonality, but without engaging in the twelve-tone technique. The String Quartet No. 3 op. 34 from 1944/45 is full of themes that Korngold had previously used in his film music and was composed at a time when he was suffering from a deep depression. The quartet sounds correspondingly gloomy for long stretches. It is dedicated to the famous conductor Bruno Walter. The first recorded public performance took place on January 3, 1949 by the New Art Quartet in Los Angeles.

Antonín Dvořák is rightly held in the highest esteem in this country as a symphonist rather than an opera composer. Equally important, however, is his multifaceted chamber music oeuvre. The variety of forms in Dvořák’s rich chamber music ranges from piano-accompanied sonatas to trios, string quartets and quintets. The string quintets have a very special significance, as at least the first two do not adhere to the traditional quintet instrumentation, but add a double bass instead of a second viola. The String Quintet in E flat major op. 97, on the other hand, features the traditional instrumentation. It was composed – far from home – in the USA in the summer of 1893 during a vacation in the Czech emigrant settlement of Spillville, which is why it is often nicknamed “The American”. Dvořák was indeed influenced by traditional American folk music, although he defined this term rather broadly and imprecisely. Nevertheless, the pronounced use of pentatonic scales and ostinato rhythms gives this string quintet an almost exotic undertone, which at times manifests itself in deliberate primitiveness. But both exoticism and primitivism go hand in hand with a highly artistic chamber music concept. It is no wonder that – alongside the symphony “From the New World” – it is one of the most immediately popular successes of the “American” Dvořák.

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