Emotion
| 1. | Introduction | 00:00:53 |
| 2. | Respighi: Sonata in B minor for Violin and Piano | 00:27:46 |
| 3. | Mendelssohn: Quartet in E minor for Strings, Op. 44, No. 2 | 00:29:50 |
| 4. | Closing | 00:00:30 |
Emotion is a big, broad word and seemingly all music is emotional in some way or another. However, when it comes to these two works, the overwhelming, unifying theme connecting them was simply raw emotion. Respighi, that most over-the-top composer of some of the world’s most bombastic pieces, poured all his passion into this sonata for violin and piano. It’s a complex, and almost orchestral-sounding sonata that’s easy to forget there are only two players at work. Nearly a decade before Respighi composed his sonata, Mendelssohn turned his attention again to the string quartet, composing a set of three — the Opus 44’s. In his first quartet, Op. 13, he eulogized the recently departed Beethoven, and with this quartet he appears to have done so again, as it not only corresponds exactly to Beethoven’s own E minor quartet composed in 1806 but also takes on a similar mood.
PROGRAM
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Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936) |
Sonata in B minor for Violin and Piano (1917) Paul Huang, violin; Alessio Bax, piano |
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Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) |
Quartet in E minor for Strings, Op. 44, No. 2 (1837) Escher String Quartet (Adam Barnett-Hart, Aaron Boyd, violin; Pierre Lapointe, viola; Brook Speltz, cello) |
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Paul Huang
Alessio Bax
Escher String Quartet
Recipient of a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2017 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists, violinist Paul Huang’s recent appearances included the Detroit Symphony, Rotterdam and Seoul philharmonics, and the BBC, San Francisco, Dallas, Baltimore, Houston, San Diego and NHK symphonies. In the 2025–26 season, he debuts with London Philharmonic, Tampere Philharmonia, Naples and Rochester philharmonics, and returns to Rotterdam Philharmonic, National Symphony of Taiwan, and North Carolina, Colorado, Pacific, and Vancouver symphonies. In fall 2021, he became the first classical violinist to perform his own arrangement of the US national anthem for the opening game of the NFL to an audience of 75,000. His recent recital appearances included those at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Aspen, and Lucerne Festivals. He plays on the legendary 1742 ex-Wieniawski Guarneri del Gesù on loan through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.
Alessio Bax catapulted to prominence with First Prize wins at both the Leeds and Hamamatsu International Piano Competitions. He has appeared with more than 150 orchestras, including the London, Royal, and St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestras, the Boston, Dallas, and Sydney Symphonies, and the NHK Symphony in Japan, collaborating with such eminent conductors as Marin Alsop, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Simon Rattle, Yuri Temirkanov, and Jaap van Zweden. He released his 11th Signum Classics album, Italian Inspirations, whose program was also the vehicle for his solo recital debut at New York’s 92nd Street Y as well as on tour. He and his regular piano duo partner, Lucille Chung, have given recitals at Lincoln Center and were featured with the St. Louis Symphony and Stéphane Denève. This season he makes his debut with the Milwaukee Symphony, and will return for the fourth time for two recitals at the historic Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Last summer he made return appearances at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival and at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival with the Dallas Symphony and Fabio Luisi conducting. At age 14, Bax graduated with top honors from the conservatory of Bari, his hometown in Italy, and after further studies in Europe, he moved to the United States in 1994. A Steinway artist, he lives in New York City with pianist Lucille Chung and their daughter, Mila. He is a former member of CMS’s Bowers Program and on the faculty at the New England Conservatory.
The Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its profound musical insight and rare tonal beauty. A former BBC New Generation Artist and recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the quartet has performed at the BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall and is a regular guest at Wigmore Hall. In its home town of New York, the ensemble appears regularly at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
The quartet achieved critical success in their performances of the entire cycle of string quartets by Béla Bartók in single-concert format, both at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Recordings of the complete Mendelssohn quartets and beloved Romantic quartets of Dvorák, Borodin, and Tchaikovsky were released on the BIS label in 2015–18 and were received with the highest critical acclaim.
Beyond the concert hall, the quartet is proud to announce the creation of a new non-profit, ESQYRE (Escher String Quartet Youth Residency Education). ESQYRE’s mission as a non-profit classical music organization is to provide a comprehensive educational program through music performance and instruction for people of all ages. In addition to their non-profit work, the quartet has also held faculty positions at Southern Methodist University and the University of Akron.
Within months of its inception in 2005, the ensemble came to the attention of key musical figures worldwide. Championed by the Emerson String Quartet, the Escher String Quartet was invited by both Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman to be Quartet in Residence at each artist’s summer festival: the Young Artists Program at Canada’s National Arts Centre, and the Perlman Chamber Music Program on Shelter Island, New York.
The Escher String Quartet takes its name from the Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher, inspired by Escher’s method of interplay between individual components working together to form a whole.