Ray Chen / The Knights

The Kreutzer Project

Ludwig van Beethoven composes a sonata and dedicates it to a famous violinist who will never play it. The Russian author Leo Tolstoy writes a novella about a man who murders his wife because her interpretation of the piano part in Beethoven’s »Kreutzer Sonata« is too passionate. Leoš Janáček composes a stirring string quartet that is inspired by Tolstoy’s novella. And the American violinist Colin Jacobsen writes an overture to this programme in which all the threads come together, finding their anchor point in the French violin virtuoso Rodolphe Kreutzer. A densely woven programme that is typical of the New York chamber orchestra The Knights, which was formed by the Jacobsen Brothers. In Ray Chen, they are joined by a top-class violinist who effortlessly shines playing the concertante violin part in Beethoven’s sonata, but who is just as adept at blending into the democratic concept of the ensemble as an outstanding chamber musician.