Proms Chamber Music 6 - 25.08.14: Royal String Quartet

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Monday 25 August
1.00 p.m. – c. 2.00 p.m.
Cadogan Hall

Mozart: Piano Sonata in D, K 311 (first performance at The Proms)
Mahler: Piano Quartet in a (first performance at The Proms)
Richard Strauss: Metamorphosen (version for septet, arr. R. Leopold; first performance of this arrangement at The Proms)

Louis Schwizgebel, piano (Proms debut artist, New Generation Artist)
Katarzyna Budnik-Gałązka, viola (Proms debut artist)
Marcin Zdunik, cello (Proms debut artist)
Tomasz Januchta, double bass (Proms debut artist)
Royal String Quartet

BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Louis Schwizgebel made his concerto debut at the Proms earlier this season and now returns for a programme of chamber music.

He is joined by the Royal String Quartet for a concert that concludes with Richard Strauss's extraordinary Metamorphosen - heard here in the string septet form in which Strauss originally drafted it, before he expanded it for an ensemble of 23 solo strings.

Alongside it is a rarely heard curiosity - Mahler's contemplative Piano Quartet movement, the tantalising torso of a work never completed.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Strauss's Metamorphosen, going beyond the score to try to discover its origins.

[Serial_Apologist]

Strauss's Metamorphosen, going beyond the score to try to discover its origins.

Interesting - I wonder if Strauss got the idea from Schoenberg's original scoring of "Verklaerte Nacht", of all music idiomatically its closest cousin, to my ears at least, though 44 years later.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Just a reminder of today's concert.

[Lento]

Strauss' doomy progression:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jwml0jevv0

I rather suspect Beethoven might have approved.

[clive heath]

...of the Paloma Faith advert? ....probably not!

[Lento]

...of the Paloma Faith advert? ....probably not!

?? One never knows.

[bluestateprommer]

Yet another fine PCM concert, with LS, the Royal SQ, and friends from Poland doing good solid work throughout. It was interesting to hear how the sextet version of Metamorphosen seemed to have a bit more 'edge' compared to the full 23-strings version, which I guess should be no surprise (although it does make one wonder how much more work each player has to do to retain all the melodic matter that 23 players could do, rather than 6).