Chamber Concert

Pianist Orion Weiss joins with several Festival Orchestra musicians for an evening of chamber music.

The soloists from Brahms’s German Requiem offer a recital of lieder (German songs) supported by the Festival’s Principal Keyboard Peter Henderson. Christina Pier’s selections include works by Franz Schubert and Clara Schumann. Benjamin Appl will sing Schumann’s Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love), a cycle of 16 short—sometimes only three lines—songs based on poems about love. It starts out happily enough, with visions of flowers and birds, but ends with the poet contemplating drowning his sorrows, his love, and his dreams in a coffin in the sea.

Beethoven wrote a string quintet?? Though it was published after his death, scholars believe the great composer re-arranged his famous “Kreutzer” violin sonata into a quintet featuring two cellos. Full of fiery passion, it features demanding solo parts for each instrument. The program opens with Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet, and String Quartet, a piece commissioned by a harp company to show off its instruments. Yet while the harp shines brightly, this is ultimately a shared tapestry that showcases Ravel’s masterful orchestration.