Dvorák's music for violin and piano comes from many periods in his career. An early Sonata in A minor of 1873 is lost. Of the works which do survive, several, including the Notturno and Four Romantic Pieces, are skilful arrangements of earlier works (the Notturno is a reworking of the central section of the E minor String Quartet, while the Four Pieces were originally written for viola and piano).
The search for "the" solo instrument of the 19th century leads inevitably to the piano. It has its place in the public concert hall as well as in the private salon, and not a few composers have emerged as successful pianists. Among the composers in this program, though, only Frédéric Chopin belongs to this group, but he soon changed his field of activity from the anonymous concert hall to the more intimate salon circle. Antonìn Dvorák, on the other hand, passed the organists' examination and was at first employed as violist in an orchestra, while Tchaikovsky was much too reclusive to interpret his own works in front of an audience. Among the selected works by Dvorák, Chopin and Tchaikovsky, only the Dvorák piano concerto requires a large concert hall, while the solo pieces by Chopin and Tchaikovsky were originally at home in the salon…
One of the greatest string quartets of the 20th-century, the - 100% Austrian - Alban Berg Quartett remains famous for their unsurpassable renditions of the great Viennese masters. The ensemble notably put on record the supreme Beethoven cycle twice, once in studio, once in the Wiener Konzerthaus. Enjoy large excerpts of these milestone recordings, coupled with late masterpieces of Schubert (the Trout Quintet featuring Elisabeth Leonskaja, the quintet with two cellos featuring Heinrich Schiff…)