On Monday, May 6th, at 9PM (EST), Washington DC’s WETA 90.9 FM will broadcast our Fall 2012 concert, Between Two Worlds: Jewish Voices in Modern European Music.
Wherever you are, can also listen live on WETA’s website by clicking here.
Don’t miss what the Washington Post called “a blazing, larger-than-life performance that seemed to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit, even from the depths of chaos.”
Ariel Quartet with pianist Orion Weiss
Between Two Worlds: Jewish Voices in Modern European Music
recorded November 11, 2012 by Classical WETA’s Bruce Cain in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.
Musicians:
Alexandra Kazovsky, violin
Gershon Gerchikov, violin
Amit Even-Tov, cello
Jan Grüning, viola
Orion Weiss, piano
ERWIN SCHULHOFF: String Quartet No. 1 (1924)
The Ariel Quartet
ARNOLD SCHOENBERG: Three Pieces for Piano (Drei Klavierstucke, Op. 11, No. 2 “Massig Achtel”) (1909)
Orion Weiss, piano
ERICH KORNGOLD: String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 34 (1945)
The Ariel Quartet
ERNEST BLOCH: Piano Quintet No. 1 (1923)
The Ariel Quartet with Orion Weiss, piano
About the Concert:
In 1945, Austrian-born film composer Erich Korngold sat down in Los Angeles to write his Third String Quartet. He chose as a principal melody the theme from the film Between Two Worlds, a perfect metaphor for a life split in two, bisected by war and exile, tragic past and uncertain future.
Korngold’s two worlds aptly sums up the theme of Pro Musica Hebraica’s fall concert: the shared experience of a formidable generation of Jewish composers—Arnold Schoenberg, Ernest Bloch, and Erwin Schulhoff—who passed from the vibrant world of fin-de-siècle Vienna, Prague, Berlin, and Paris into the heart of Europe’s twentieth century’s terrors. These composers responded to their tumultuous world by drawing from the reserve of their Jewish heritage and producing startlingly original—yet largely forgotten—music.
To explore this legacy, Pro Musica Hebraica partnered with one of the most dynamic young string quartets of our day, the Ariel Quartet. Natives of Israel, they were joined by the young virtuoso pianist Orion Weiss.