Amenda and Friends: A Transfigured Night

Beethoven: Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 18 No. 6

Kodaly: Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7

Schoenberg: Verklaerte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4

Our season opens with the brilliantly fresh B-flat major quartet of Beethoven! This work travels from jolly elegance and cunning rhythmic impulses to deep anguish and pathos - anticipating the breadth of the composer's life journey. The last of the "early" quartets, Op. 18 No. 6 is the most recent in "Project Ludwig" - the Amenda's trek through the Beethoven cycle.

Cellist Michael Kannen, who performed Schubert's cello quintet with the Amenda in First Muse's Season Five, joins David Brickman for Zoltan Kodaly's fascinating Duo for Violin and Cello. Influenced by the folk melodies and harmonies of his native Hungary, Kodaly explores the rhapsodic and dramatic qualities of the two instruments - expect to be dazzled!

The ethereal string sextet of Schoenberg, written in 1899, is "program music" based on a poem by Richard Dehmel (German poet and writer, 1863-1920). Verklaerte Nacht portrays a moonlit walk by a man and a woman full of emotion, confession, and transformation. Rich late-romantic harmonies and lush string sonorities! You may enjoy reading the wonderful LA Phil program notes about this piece here.

$10 general / $5 student / $20 family maximum

First Unitarian Church - 220 Winton Road South - Rochester NY 14610

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