September 15, 4pm - Cambria Presbyterian Church

Maurice Sklar – violin, Mike Whitson – viola, Hilary Clark – cello, Robert Cassidy – piano.

Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op. 25 | Johannes Brahms
Piano Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 47 | Robert Schumann
Piano Quartet in A Minor | Gustav Mahler

We begin our 10th Anniversary Season in the cool air of Cambria with Piano Quartets by German Romantic composers. The piano quartet is a great vehicle for chamber music, combining the warmth and richness of strings with the clarity of the piano.

The program features two piano quartets by men who had a great influence on each other, and a shared love of one woman. These composers are Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Schumann, the elder statesman of the new German Romantic style, was also the editor of the New Music Journal, in which he praised Brahms as the next Beethoven, the next great German composer. This put a great deal of pressure on the 20-year-old Brahms. Schumann’s wife, Clara Wieck, was a leading concert pianist, composer, and critic. She encouraged and helped Brahms with his compositions. He, in turn, became confused with feelings of love for her, and guilt that is mentor, Schumann, was her husband. Even after Schumann’s early death, the two continued the relationship, but Clara never allowed it to go beyond a professional one.

On the program is Schumann’s impassioned quartet in E-flat, and Brahms’ fiery early opus in G minor. Also on the program is a one-movement work by Gustav Mahler, the Late Romantic composer of massive symphonies and writer of songs. This is the only instrumental chamber work that survives.