classical music, chamber music, liverpool, merseyside, concerts

Monday 28 September 2009
at 7.30pm

Ensemble Solista

Hummel: Quintet in E flat, Op.87

Dvorak: Piano Quartet No.1 in D, Op.23

Schubert: Quintet in A, D667

Our 2009 – 2010 season commences with a concert which includes an abundance of melodic invention, and includes what is arguably the best-known piece of chamber music in existance – Schubert's "Trout Quintet".

The combination of piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass is an unusual one.   Hummel wrote his quintet for this combination of instruments in 1802.   Schubert's better-known "Trout Quintet" was written 17 years later for a group of players who were performing Hummel's piece and wanted another (longer) work for the same forces.

Although composing for this particular combination of instruments did not persist, in a sense Hummel's Piano Quintet may be regarded as the foundation stone for the entire tradition of compositions for piano quintet in the nineteenth century. However, later composers preferred a combination of piano with the standard string quartet instrumentation of two violins, viola and cello.

Dvorak's first Piano Quartet is an attractive work.   It may lack the brilliant piano writing of his second Piano Quartet written nearly fifteen years later but the string writing is masterly, and the whole composition is full of Slavonik melodic invention and charm.

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Ensemble Solista was formed by some of London's leading musicians who have done many BBC Radio 3 & Classic FM broadcasts and make regular appearances with the BBC and Covent Garden Orchestras. They have performed in the Purcell Room, St. John's Smith Square, St. David's Hall Cardiff and toured worldwide.