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Alban Gerhardt © Kaupo Kikkas
RENCONTRES INÉDITES I
Schnittke, Strauss / Hadelich – A. Sitkovetsky – Tamestit – Gerhardt – Matsuev
The Rencontres Inédites embody the spirit of the Verbier Festival, and this concert presents a starry line-up including Augustin Hadelich and Alban Gerhardt, who both appear for the first time at the Festival, with Alexander Sitkovetsky, Antoine Tamesit and Denis Matsuev.
Programme
ALFRED SCHNITTKE
String Trio
RICHARD STRAUSS
Piano Quartet in C minor Op. 13
Distribution
- Augustin Hadelich violin
- Alexander Sitkovetsky violin
- Antoine Tamestit viola
- Alban Gerhardt cello
- Denis Matsuev piano
Alfred Schnittke’s bleak two-movement String Trio is a late-career work, composed in 1985 in honour of the centenary of Alban Berg’s birth, and its nods to Berg’s Viennese heritage include whispers of Schubert and Mahler, and a sonata form first movement. This movement’s material springs mostly from its initial melancholic dance theme. The ensuing Adagio then inverts this theme, and transforms into an even darker funeral march. It ends on an eerily rising wisp from the violin. Strauss’s Piano Quartet of 1885 was penned when he was just 21. Its opening Allegro‘s shades of Brahms are almost uncanny, but hints of the Strauss to come include the ardent, long-lined second subject, tailed with little falling sighs. An elfin Scherzo houses a romantic Viennese trio. Then after a sentimental Andante comes a passionate finale.