Pianist Gabriela Martinez joins with several Festival Orchestra musicians to perform Brahms’s Piano Quartet in G Minor. Clara Schumann played the piano part at this piece’s premiere in 1861, which was fortunate since it’s often described as “stupendously virtuosic.” The piece met with instant acclaim, lauded for both its innovative structure—which launches straight into a number of variations on the first theme—and its incredible finale, which was written “in the gypsy style,” according to Brahms’s own description. Ms. Martinez will open this concert with Caroline Shaw’s Chopin-inspired Gustave le Gray.

In between two of the most famous classical works ever written (his third and fifth symphonies), Beethoven produced this gem of a composition. Light, airy, and approachable, it certainly warrants more love; Schumann called it “a slender Greek maiden between two huge Nordic giants.” Can a piece of music be mournful and elegiac, somber and grieving, while also exquisitely beautiful, even radiant, and full of life? Give a listen to Anna Clyne’s ode to her mother, Within Her Arms, and see what you think.