The Bilkent Ensemble, consisting of Svetlana Rebresh (violin), Anna Chebukova (violin), Tijana Šilinger (viola), Doğuş Ergin (cello) and Cihan Yücel (piano), are to perform César Franck’s Piano Quintet in F minor and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Piano Quintet in E major.
The Piano Quintet in F minor by César Franck (1822-90) was written in 1879, and is regarded as one of the composer’s finest achievements. At the first performance, the piano part was played by the composer Camille Saint-Saëns, to whom the piece was dedicated. Wikipedia tells us that ‘A minor scandal ensued when at the piece’s completion, Saint-Saëns walked off the stage leaving the score open at the piano, which was interpreted as a mark of disdain. … Notwithstanding Saint-Saëns’s ungenerous behaviour, the work has been described as having a ‘torrid emotional power’.’
The three-movement Piano Quintet in E major by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957), a Jewish child prodigy and composer of Austrian/Moravian origin who fled Europe to the United States in the mid-1930s and became famous as ‘the first composer of international stature to write Hollywood scores’ (Wikipedia), was composed in 1921. The theme for the initially lyrical but subsequently driven second movement is based on Korngold’s own song Mond, so gehst du wieder auf (‘Moon, thou riseth again’) from Lieder des Abschieds (‘Songs of Farewell’), 1920.
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
