Nostalgic Innovation

Nostalgia for the past and a keen eye to the future tie together these works by Brahms, Bartok, and Shaw.

Nostalgia for the past and a keen eye to the future tie together the works that violinist Rose Drucker chose for our first program of the season. Brahms draws on his reverence of Bach in his String Quartet in A minor, Op. 51. No. 2 to help him escape the shadow of Beethoven, composing a work that mixes beautiful and expressive melodies with rigorous counterpoint. The young Bartok starts his String Quartet No. 1 firmly in the expressive world of Brahms lamenting his unrequited love for violinist Stefi Geyer, but then draws inspiration from his study of Debussy and the folk music of Eastern Europe to end the quartet in a new musical language that he would develop in his remaining five quartets. Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte “is structured like a minuet and trio, riffing on that classical form but taking it a little further… [that] suddenly takes you to the other side of Alice’s looking glass, in a kind of absurd, subtle, technicolor transition.”

Tickets are $25 for general admission. Free for students (with ID).

Concert 1/5 in the Looking Back, Moving Forward series.