Liene NEIJA-KALNIŅA
Beāte RAČKO
Arigo ŠTRĀLS – section principal
Diana OZOLIŅA – section principal
Edgars TOMŠEVICS
Programme:
Ludwig van Beethoven,
Enrique Granados,
Franz Schubert,
Joaquín Turina.
A programme of contrasts from Austria and Spain. Joaquín Turina and Enrique Granados are cornerstones in the shaping of a Spanish national identity in the classical music of the first half of the 20th century. From Turina’s output the musicians have chosen the vividly Spanish “The Bullfighter’s Prayer”, and from Granados the rarely heard, elegant Piano Quintet. Viennese classicism, meanwhile, is represented by the endearing Piano Trio in C major of the teenage Beethoven and by the programme’smagnum opus– Schubert’s Fantasy in F minor for two pianists, written as if by an angel’s hand.
Enrique Granados deserves our attention as one of the most notable figures in Spanish music at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries – in Europe he was known as an outstanding pianist, while in Spain he did admirable work as a music teacher and the author of piano treatises. Granados was called the Spanish Grieg, though it must be said that we shall not find much Spanish flavour in the Piano Quartet; it is, however, a wonderful example of fine chamber music, and it is worth bearing in mind that it will be played by superb musicians who gave breathtaking performances in last season’s chamber concerts.
The young Beethoven’s piano trio makes a good match for Granados, as does the genre picture by Granados’s colleague Turina – a bullfighter’s prayer and the taking of the sacrament before facing the bull; Schubert’s Fantasy, by contrast, comes from an entirely different world. It is supposed that this fantasy was dedicated to Schubert’s secret passion, Caroline Esterházy, and the theory sits well here that F minor – the home key of the work – is the key of hopeless love.