Music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge
The US pianist and patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, daughter and heiress of a Chicago wholesaler, used her considerable fortune to promote contemporary chamber music. Coolidge, who had many of the commissioned works performed in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., which she financed, used her patronage to support mainly progressive composers who were considered "complicated" by the general public, including Arnold Schoenberg, Anton von Webern, Igor Stravinsky and Benjamin Britten, for example. "I'm not demanding that we should love modern music," she stressed, "not even that we necessarily have to understand it, but that we should perform it because it is a significant human document."
Two such works commissioned by Coolidge are presented by the Schumann Quartet, which last thrilled audiences at the Brucknerhaus Linz in June 2022 with works by the Mendelssohn siblings and the Schumann couple. These are Sergei Prokofiev's String Quartet No. 1 and the rarely heard String Quartet No. 2 in F-sharp minor by Leó Weiner, who was celebrated as the "Hungarian Mendelssohn" in the 1920s. There has been a change in the programme at short notice. Instead of the planned String Quartet No. 5 by Béla Bartók, the String Quartet No. 8 by Antonín Dvořák will be performed. We ask for your understanding.
Sergei Prokofjew (1891–1953)
String Quartet No. 1 in B minor, op. 50 (1930)
Leó Weiner (1885–1960)
String Quartet No. 2 in F-sharp minor, op. 13 (1921)
– Break –
Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
Streichquartett Nr. 8 E-Dur, op. 80
Schumann Quartett
Erik Schumann | Violin
Ken Schumann | Violin
Veit Hertenstein | Viola
Mark Schumann | Violoncello