Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in B flat major, Op. 1 No. 1 as the starting point of a great and important body of work? Perhaps, although it is rather a debatable question, since this work is actually a divertimento or cassation, so something lighter than a ‘proper’ string quartet. Programming it alongside Karol Szymanowski’s Second Quartet, Op. 56 brings out the lengthy path of development and change that occurred in this form over more than two hundred years. As Szymanowski wrote to Paweł Kochański: ‘I think it’ll sound good’. Antonín Dvořák could well have said the same about his Quintet in A major, which exudes great melodic inventiveness.
Simply... Philharmonic! Project 2:
The main discourse in this series of concerts is between solo piano and chamber music, but there is also the phenomenon of ‘intraspecies rivalry’ between the mighty pianoforte that inhabits concert halls across the globe and historical instruments that, while still in the minority, are slowly gaining ground. Until quite recently, presenting Chopin’s music on nineteenth-century pianos was seen as nothing short of heresy. Today, it is a separate strand of interpretation that has even been afforded its own performance competition.
Marcin Majchrowski
