Details

The first concert in this series features works inspired by the rich tradition of Czech folk music. A quartet and piano quintet by Dvorak - both filled with Czech and Slavonic melodies - frame the programme, which also includes music by a later Czech composer, Janacek. The First String Quartet by Janacek is called The Kreutzer Sonata after a novella of the same name by Tolstoy. In a letter to Kamila Stosslova - the young woman who was the object of his desire later in life - Janacek wrote of the piece: 'I was imagining a poor woman, tormented and run down, just like the one the Russian writer Tolstoy describes in his Kreutzer Sonata.'

Cast/Performers

Menahem Pressler (piano)