Chamber Music: Color, Visions, and Revelations
Wednesday, May 13 | 7:30 PM | $5–22
Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder

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• GÁL Suite for Solo Cello
• MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition with projections
  of images by Viktor Hartmann that inspired Mussorgsky and the paintings by Kandinksy inspired by Mussorgsky’s music
• MESSIAEN Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time)

Featuring Festival Artists

Zach DePue – Violin
Mark Votapek – Cello
Matthew Sharp – Cello
Daniel Silver – clarinet
David Korevaar – piano

Composed while Olivier Messiaen was a prisoner of war in Stalag VIII-A, the Quartet for the End of Time is one of the monuments of 20th Century chamber music. Messiaen was one of the most famously synaesthetic  composers of all time. He equated music sonority with color in a systematic way in all his compositions. Like Mahler’s Second Symphony, Messiaen’s masterpiece tackles the subject of the End of Time head on, culminating in a transcendent “Hymn to the Immortality of Jesus.”

Wasily Kandinsky’s design for the Great Gate of Kiev

Although heard most often today in Ravel’s much loved orchestration, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition was conceived as a virtuoso piano work. Inspired by a memorial exhibition of paintings by Mussorgsky’s friend and compatriot, Viktor Hartmann, the work is one of the first, most important, and best-loved classical works to be directly inspired by visual art. Our performance incorporates projections of the Hartmann designs which so inspired Mussorgsky, and Kandinsky’s re-imaginings as inspired by Mussorgsky in the 1920’s.

Hans Gál (1890-1987) was possibly the last Viennese master in the great tradition that ran from Haydn and Mozart through Schubert and Beethoven to Mahler and Schoenberg. A child of Mahler’s Vienna who was present at the premiere of Mahler’s 6th Symphony, Gál’s Suite for Solo Cello is one of his last works, written in 1982 as a present for the composer’s grandson. Cellist Matthew Sharp’s recording of the work was chosen as a 2018 MusicWeb Recording of the Year.

Pianist David Korevaar

Save 20% on tickets purchased before March 15. No code needed!

Viktor Hartmann’s Baba Yaga, The Hut on Fowl’s Legs

Explore some of the music included in this concert via this YouTube Playlist

Highlights of Matthew Sharp’s Award-Winning Recording of Cello Music of Hans Gál