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For the next instalment of Discover Musica Viva, we are delighted to bring you a performance from Piers Lane and Ensemble Q. With tickets starting from just $5, this broadcast on 4 November guarantees viewers the best seats in the house to what will be a delightful presentation of great works.
Piers Lane is regarded the world over as a master of the piano, a consummate soloist and chamber musician whose interpretations of great works are equal to none. Piers is joined by violinists Natsuko Yoshimoto and Anne Horton, violist Imants Larsens, and cellist Trish Dean for an evening of high drama, centred on the Brahms Piano Quintet.
Having recorded and performed the work to brilliant effect over the course of his esteemed career, Lane and his fellow musicians will reveal the sublimity and violence at the heart of Brahms’ work. The first movement alone is a shining, complex tapestry of musical themes, taut and controlled, which gives way to a slow movement of infinite tenderness and then a Scherzo of pent-up energy. It all culminates in a headlong, frenzied finale certain to leave listeners breathless.
Equally atmospheric is Szymanowski’s Second String Quartet, considered one of the composer’s most difficult and avant-garde works. Written for a competition it did not win, and disliked by Szymanowski who had doubts about its value, the Quartet’s singular nature and sense of mystery has long compelled both musicians and audiences. Its sense of dissolution is downright eerie, while the Finale offers only a moment of catharsis.
It’s paired with Lili Boulanger’s striking Thème et Variations, a work of austere beauty that nevertheless contains bold pianistic gestures. This is another piece that Lane has performed to acclaim, giving it an elegance of expression that only serves to underline its underlying turmoil.
This broadcast is available for purchase in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The 48 hour re-watch period for the event begins at 8:30pm AEDT on Thursday 4 November.
