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 |
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
|
Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936) |
Sonata in B minor for Violin and Piano (1917) Paul Huang, violin; Alessio Bax, piano |
|
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) |
| Title | Date |
|---|---|
| Streaming live | {{ViewModel.StreamingOn.date}}, {{ViewModel.StreamingOn.time}} |
| Available on-demand until | {{ViewModel.AvailableUntil.date}}, {{ViewModel.AvailableUntil.time}} |
{{ViewModel.BuySubscription.prompt}}
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 has made recent appearances with the Rotterdam Philharmonic with Lahav Shani, Dallas and NHK Symphonies with Fabio Luisi, Detroit Symphony with Leonard Slatkin, Baltimore Symphony and Seoul Philharmonic with Markus Stenz, San Francisco Symphony with Mei-Ann Chen, and Houston Symphony with Andrés Orozco-Estrada. In the 2024–25 season, he returns to the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, Hiroshima Symphony, and Residentie Orkest Den Haag with Jun Markl, and makes his London debut at the Barbican Hall with BBC Symphony and Marie Jacquot. He recently stepped in for Anne-Sophie Mutter at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, playing Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4 with Chamber Orchestra Vienna-Berlin, and made recital debuts at the Lucerne and Aspen Music Festivals, all to critical acclaim. In fall 2021, he also became the first classical violinist to perform his own arrangement of the US national anthem for the opening game of the NFL at the Bank of America Stadium to an audience of 75,000. Winner of the 2011 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, Huang earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Juilliard School. He plays on the legendary 1742 ex-Wieniawski Guarneri del Gesù on loan through the Stradivari Society of Chicago. He is on the faculty of Taipei National University of the Arts and resides in New York.
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 hometown of New York, the ensemble serves as season artists of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The 2021-2022 season found the Escher Quartet touring the U.S. extensively, performing in numerous cities and venues including Alice Tully Hall and Rockefeller University, the Kennedy Center, the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, La Jolla Music Society, Savannah Music Festival, and Chamber Music Society of Detroit. Internationally, the quartet returns to Wigmore Hall in London and the Sociedad Filarmonica de Bilbao. The Escher Quartet has made a distinctive impression throughout Europe, with recent debuts including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Konzerthaus, London’s Kings Place, Slovenian Philharmonic Hall, Les Grands Interprètes Geneva, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and Auditorium du Louvre. The group has appeared at festivals such as the Heidelberg Spring Festival, Budapest’s Franz Liszt Academy, Dublin’s Great Music in Irish Houses, the Risør Chamber Music Festival in Norway, the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival, and the Perth International Arts Festival in Australia. Alongside its growing European profile, the Escher Quartet continues to flourish in its home country, performing at the Aspen Music Festival, Bravo! Vail, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Bowdoin Music Festival, Toronto Summer Music, Chamber Music San Francisco, Music@Menlo, and the Ravinia and Caramoor festivals. The quartet has held faculty positions at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX and the University of Akron, OH. Recordings of the complete Mendelssohn quartets and beloved romantic quartets of Dvorak, Borodin and Tchaikovsky were released on the BIS label in 2015-18 and received critical acclaim, with comments such as “…eloquent, full-blooded playing... The four players offer a beautiful blend of individuality and accord” (BBC Music Magazine). In 2019, Dance, an album of quintet’s with Grammy award winning guitarist Jason Vieaux, was enthusiastically received. The Escher’s most recent recording, the complete quartet of Charles Ives and Samuel Barber, was met with equal excitement, including “A fascinating snapshot of American quartets, with a recording that is brilliantly detailed, this is a first-rate release all around” (Strad Magazine). The quartet has also recorded the complete Zemlinsky String Quartets in two volumes, released on the Naxos label in 2013 and 2014. Within months of its inception in 2005, the ensemble came to the attention of key musical figures worldwide. Championed by the Emerson Quartet, the Escher 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, NY. The Escher 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.