Due to reasons beyond the Warsaw Philharmonic, Ms Karolina Errera will be replacing the viola player of the Belcea Quartet, Mr Krzysztof Chorzelski.

The Four Pieces for String Quartet, Op. 81 comprise a posthumously published collection of short chamber compositions by Felix Mendelssohn, written between 1827 and 1847. The last two pieces are a nostalgic and dramatic Capriccio, with the use of fugue technique in the second movement, and a four-part Fugue based on a slow, lyrical theme. The rather unusual (for the Romantic era) reference to the fugue form in Mendelssohn’s work can be explained by his well-known fascination with the musical heritage of the Baroque, in particular the work of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No. 2, composed in 1945, on the other hand, points to references to another great Baroque composer, Henry Purcell. This work, considered one of Britten’s most important instrumental compositions, showcases the characteristic ambiguity of his style, stretched out between neoclassicism and avant-garde. The connection with Purcell’s music is particularly evident in the third and final movement, which refers to the Baroque polyphonic form of the chaconne.

Written in 1920–1921, while the composer was still working in Europe, Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Piano Quintet in E major betrays, from its very first notes, a clear aesthetic affinity with the composer’s Hollywood work, which came more than a decade later (today, Korngold is known primarily as one of the most outstanding American composers of film music). Stylistically conservative and strongly Romantic in expression, Korngold’s language nevertheless shows certain influences from the avant-garde tendencies of twentieth-century music; as a Viennese, he undoubtedly witnessed their emergence.
 

Robert Losiak