The programme of chamber music bubbling with feelings, emotions and passions was prepared by the Kaunas String Quartet, one of the most important classical music ensembles in Kaunas, and pianist Indrė Petrauskaitė, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London, who is currently residing in Great Britain and returning to the homeland for concerts.
This year, Giedrius Kuprevičius, one of Lithuania’s most prolific and best-known composers, and winner of the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Art, is celebrating his 80th birthday. He is a composer, teacher, essayist and polemist of many different kinds. The composer himself wrote of his quartet work “Summer Nights with Naujalis”: “You always want to snuggle up to more solid creative figures in the hope that you yourself will become more solid. With such noble goals in mind, I also approached Juozas Naujalis, who is not my favourite. Summer nights always inspire adventures. Mine, linked to a glimpse of Naujalis’ sentimental melody “Quiet pleasant summer nights…”, became a piece for string quartet, and later a version for chamber orchestra. <…> The music, with as much irony as respect for the Patriarch, is a kind of play that separates feeling from reason.”
German composer Robert Schumann’s (1810-1856) First string quartet, like many of his other opuses, is named after the love of the composer’s life, the composer and pianist Clara Schumann. All three quartets of this opus were first performed as a 23rd birthday present for Clara on 13 September 1842. Although Schumann’s string quartets are less frequently performed in concert programmes than other popular opuses in this genre, they are a testament to the composer’s intensive study of chamber music and his unique imagination and craftsmanship.
The concert will culminate with the Piano Quintet in C minor by Ernst von Dohnányi, one of the most prominent personalities of the first half of the 20th century, a Hungarian composer. Although this was the composer’s first published opus, it was very well received by the public and, according to contemporaries, Johannes Brahms himself said: “I could not have composed better myself.” This opus is written in the romantic spirit of Schumann and Brahms, but with an individual and Dohnánianly distinctive musical flair. Dramatic and sensual music is interwoven with lyrical moments, and the work culminates in a bright and hopeful mood, bringing this youthful opus to a triumphant close.
