Gewandhaus Quartet

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was born in Hamburg in 1809 and died in Leipzig at the age of 38. He was very early musically gifted. Mendelssohn performed in public at the age of 9 and composed already from the age of 11. As a pupil of Friedrich Zelter, who was a friend of Goethe, Mendelssohn composed at the age of 17 his first masterpiece: the Overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream. This is included in the extensive CD box as well as a large number of other known or less known pieces by him. The String Quartet in F Minor Op. 80 - written in memory of his beloved sister Fanny - which was recorded in this collection by the Aurora String Quartet is undoubtedly one of his most beautiful works. The Gächinger Kantorei with Helmuth Rilling, the Bach Collegium Stuttgart, the Bartholdy Piano Quartet, the Heidelberger Sinfoniker with Thomas Fey, Ana-Marija Markovina and other renowned interpreters and orchestras can also be heard.

In this new series, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective juxtaposes piano quartets by Brahms with ones by his lesser-known contemporaries. For this first volume the group has chosen the Piano Quartet of Luise Adolpha Le Beau. Born in 1850 in Rastatt, in Baden, she studied with Clara Schumann and Franz Lachner, as well as Josef Rheinberger. Her extensive output covers all genres: orchestral works, plenty of choral music, two operas, and an extensive number of Lieder, solo piano pieces, and chamber music. Her Piano Quartet was composed in 1884 and performed in the Leipzig Gewandhaus that year to great critical acclaim; indeed, Julius Riedel, who was responsible for concerts in that venue, told her that her success eclipsed any he had known there. On a concert tour to Vienna in the same year, she met Brahms and Hanslick; both invited her to show them her compositions, and responded positively.

Dr. Sarah Shin is a vibrant performer, educator, and collaborator. She is the Lecturer of Flute at Princeton University, a member of the Richardson Chamber Players, affiliated with Princeton University, and on the faculty at Rutgers University MGSA Community Arts as a flute instructor and chamber music coach. She has given master classes and workshops throughout the nation such as Carnegie Mellon University, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, University of Virginia Flute Forum, to name a few. Sarah is a William S. Haynes Artist and performs on a handmade custom Haynes 14k white gold flute.

Continuing his Bruckner cycle on Deutsche Grammophon with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Andris Nelsons presents the Symphony No. 7 in E major, paired with an excerpt from Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, "Siegfried's Funeral March" from Götterdämmerung. While this symphony is outwardly one of Bruckner's most approachable, particularly in its lyrical opening movement, its energetic Scherzo, and its jubilant Finale, its long, funereal Adagio makes the connection to the gloomy Ring selection more apparent, since this slow movement was composed in anticipation of Wagner's death. It also marks the first time that Bruckner used a quartet of the novel "Wagner tubas," and unusually wrote parts for cymbals, triangle, and timpani at the movement's climax, perhaps symbolizing Wagner's apotheosis.