Philharmonic Chamber Music Recital

The musicologist and musician Arthur Hoérée was succinct in his appraisal of the early work »Trio à cordes«: »a masterpiece«. From Paris, the programme moves on to Prague and Erwin Schulhoff, who was one of the most successful international composers of the 1920s before becoming embroiled in the machinations of the politics of the day. At the premiere of his first string quartet, however, success was in the air for him, with the tingling nervousness and the folkloristically coloured, dazzling variety of sound delighting both the press and the public. To this day, the work is still considered a milestone for every chamber music ensemble.

That avant-garde is not just a style but an internal way of being, as shown by Anton Webern’s final string quartet. On 12 March 1938, the day of Hitler’s invasion of Austria, he wrote to friends: »I am fully immersed in my work and do not wish to be disturbed.« And so it came to pass that a work of unparalleled concentration and technical elegance was born amidst the brutality of war raging all around.

The Sextet by Erich Wolfgang Korngold also demands the highest musical precision and virtuosity. The composer, who in his younger years was regarded as the legitimate successor of none other than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, also labelled a »child prodigy«, is revered above all for his operas and film music. A prophetic foreshadowing of his great film scores can be heard in the String Sextet.