Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart single-handedly „invented“, so to speak, the genre piano quartet with just two works. While these two three-movement quartets, at least in structure, belong firmly in the realm of chamber music, the contributions of Robert Schumann and Antonín Dvořák to the genre are of explicitly symphonic design as far as their formal layout is concerned.
In Schumann's only piano quartet the four movements with their closely related and interwoven thematic material correspond to those of a symphony: the first movement in sonata form with a slow introduction is followed by a Scherzo with two trios, an Andante in variation form, and a Finale in sonata rondo form. The same is true of Dvořák's second piano quartet, one of his most important and melodious works, though here the slow movement is the second of the four. This concert, given by the Notos Quartet, one of „the outstanding chamber music formations of the present day“, follows the development of the piano quartet over a period of a hundred years or so. It is also dedicated to the various facets of one key, as all three works are in the key of Eb major - as is Bruckner's „fourth“, his first symphony in a major key, which can be heard in the next Bruckner Festival concert on 22nd September.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Piano quartet No. 2 in Eb major, KV 493 (1786)
Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Piano quartet in Eb major, op. 47 (1842)
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Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
Piano quartet No. 2 in Eb major, op. 87 (1889)
Notos Quartett
Sindri Lederer | Violin
Andrea Burger | Viola
Philip Graham | Violoncello
Antonia Köster | Piano
