The Spotlight Chamber Music Series IV

The final concert in the Spotlight Chamber Music Series 2023 will feature three exceptional string players from Cork, who are joined by renowned Wicklow pianist Fiachra Garvey. Their programme features two contemporary works – a piano quartet by Irish composer and Aosdána member Rhona Clarke, which “concerns itself with alternation and contrasts of mood”, and a selection of duos for violin and cello by German composer Jörg Widmann, former Principal Conductor of the Irish Chamber Orchestra. These will be presented alongside Johannes Brahms’ first Piano Quartet, written between 1856 and 1861 when the composer was still in his twenties. This beautifully lyrical, four-movement work combines the exuberance and vigour of youth with a growing mastery of form and thematic development. Indeed, Arnold Schoenberg admired the work so much that in 1937, he penned an orchestral arrangement which is often played today.