Chamber music matinée 6

One might almost think that Mozart invented the genre of the piano quartet, as there were hardly any models worth mentioning at the time. Accordingly, audiences in Vienna were little prepared for such a work, and somehow this still seems to be the case today: In any case, the two piano quartets occupy a rather special position in Mozart’s chamber music output, at least compared to the string quartets and quintets. This can in no way be due to the compositional quality – both are mature, magnificent works. Mozart wrote the Piano Quartet in E flat major K. 493 just a few weeks after the premiere of his opera “Le nozze di Figaro”. It sounds correspondingly cheerful and light-hearted, like an intimate chamber music opera scene, so to speak. The Larghetto, in A flat major, refines and deepens the instrumental balance of the first movement. And in the final rondo, Mozart once again subverts the listening expectations of his time, as it dispenses with a “solid” and ostentatiously cheerful contrast. In 1800, Friedrich Rochlitz wrote in the “Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung” that this work was “definitely only intended for a smaller circle”, as “the spirit of the artist appears in a rare, strange way, grand and sublime, like an apparition from another world”. And for the interpretation, he recommended instrumentalists “who, in addition to the necessary considerable skill, have a heart and a mind very maturely educated for music”.

Bohuslav Martinů’s works are still rarely performed in our country. This cannot be explained by the artistic significance of his oeuvre, which is beyond all doubt. Martinů, who came from Bohemia, was a cosmopolitan who spent most of his life outside his beloved homeland and partly in exile in America. He was a very prolific composer whose oeuvre is still almost unmanageable today. His first piano quartet in D minor was composed in the USA in 1942. He had this to say about the form of the quartet: “A quartet makes you feel at home, at home and happy. It is raining outside, the darkness is increasing, but the four voices pay no attention to it. They are independent and free, they do what they like and are still a harmonious ensemble.” Although Martinů initially felt alienated in the USA, he soon enjoyed considerable success – for example with the premiere of his Concerto grosso in 1941 and his first symphony the following year. He always remained connected to Czech folk music and continued to give it a wide berth right up to his last works.