15. Fortepiano Festivals Stuttgart 'Momente' - Klavierquartett: Gegenpole

Piano quartet: Gegenpole in the Haigstkirche Stuttgart

Yuko Abe-Haueis | fortepiano after Fritz von
Michael Walker, 2000
Emily Deans | viola
Anderson Fiorelli | violoncello
Waleska Sieczkowska | violin

Two absolute masterpieces of the piano quartet genre will be performed for the first time at the festival: Mozart's radically expressive Quartet in G minor and the inward-looking, poetic Piano Quartet in E flat major, Op. 47 by Robert Schumann.
Mozart's contemporaries had difficulty with the Piano Quartet in G minor. Commissioned by the publisher Hoffmeister, this work - today a highlight of chamber music - was too much for the listening habits of the time, to the point that Hoffmeister even withdrew his contract for the work. "Terribly sleepless nights - as always!" and five weeks of intensive composing resulted in the Piano Quartet in E flat major op. 47. The string quartet, which Schumann intended as an antithesis to the piano composition ("the piano is becoming too narrow for me" he wrote to Clara in 1838) was composed in the chamber music year 1842 and inspired as an intense work or, as Clara Schumann wrote, "truly delighted by this beautiful work, so youthful."

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
Piano Quartet in G minor KV. 478: Allegro, Andante, Rondeau

Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856)
Piano Quartet in E flat major Op. 47: Sostenuto assai - Allegro ma non Troppo, Scherzo Molto vivace, Andante cantabile, Finale Vivace