In Celebration of Their 20th Season, Spectrum Concerts Berlin to Perform Four Concerts In New York and Los Angeles In April
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Ensemble Will Release Their Second Ernst Toch CD on Naxos April 29.
In April, Naxos artist Spectrum Concerts Berlin will perform a series of concerts in New York and Los Angeles in celebration of their 20th season. The programs will prominently feature music by composer Ernst Toch (1887–1964), an Austrian-born Jew who fled Berlin in 1933. The Ensemble, who has championed the music of Ernst Toch since 1997, also releases their second Naxos CD of his music on April 29 (Naxos 8559324). The recording includes many of the works which they will be performing on their concerts including his powerful and vividly defiant Piano Quintet (1938), Three Impromptus, Violin Sonata No. 2 (1928) and Burlesken. Spectrum Concerts Berlin has four other Naxos recordings to date including another CD of music by Ernst Toch (8559282), which was released in 2006, and recordings of music by Robert Helps, Ernst von Dohnanyi and John Harbison. Their sixth Naxos CD, which will be released in late summer, features pianists Robert Levin and Ya-Fei Chaung and will include chamber and solo music of Stanley Walden.
New York concerts include appearances at The Times Center on Wednesday, April 9 at 8 PM and at the College of Staten Island, Center for the Arts, on Thursday, April 10 at 7:30 PM. Concerts in Los Angeles are scheduled at the Goethe-Institute on April 13, at 4 PM and at the Villa Aurora on April 14 at 8 PM. Lannan Literary Award winner and Artistic Director of the Chicago Humanities Festival (Ernst Toch’s grandson) Lawrence Weschler will lead a pre-concert discussion at all venues except the College of Staten Island.
SPECTRUM CONCERTS BERLIN:
Annette von Hehn, Linus Roth Violin
Lars Wouters van den Oudenweijer Clarinet
Hartmut Rohde Viola
Frank Dodge ‘Cello
Daniel Blumenthal Piano
PROGRAM:
ROBERT SCHUMANN: Marchenerzahlungen for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, Op. 132
PAUL HINDEMITH: Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano
ERNST TOCH: Burlesken for Piano, Op. 31 • Impromptus for Cello, Op. 90 c
Sonata for Violin and Piano, No. 1 • Piano Quintet, Op. 64
Led by founder and Artistic Director Frank Dodge Spectrum Concerts Berlin (www.spectrumconcerts.com) has, over the past two decades, been acclaimed for producing eclectic concerts of European and American chamber music for a team of expatriate Americans and such European stars as violinist Janine Jansen and Julian Rachlin. The group is known in its native city for its adventurous programming, private support in the midst of a formidable system based on state support, and the outstanding quality of performances. Information: www.spectrumconcerts.com
Ernst Toch was a self-taught modernist, who learned music’s fundamentals from Mozart’s string quartets. Having fought for Austria in WWI, he was able to ground his musical expression on both theory and human experience. Toch was hugely successful in Germany until 1933, when he left and settled in Southern California, where he had to get used to the radically different music world of the U.S. and Hollywood. He was successful, but largely unfulfilled composing for the movies. In his last years, Toch composed seven symphonies, the third of which won him a Pulitzer Prize.
*This disc has been generously supported by the Ernst Toch Society, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc. and was coproduced with Deutschlandradio
SPECTRUM CONCERTS BERLIN ON NAXOS:
DOHNANYI: Serenade for String Trio/Sextet; 8557153
HARBISON: Four Songs of Solitude/Variations/Twilight Music; 8559173
HELPS: Shall We Dance/Piano Quartet/Postlude/Nocturne; 8559199
TOCH: Tanz-Suite/Cello Concerto; 8559282
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