Chamber Music Society at Goethe Institute on Sunday

The Chamber Music Society of Colombo, in association with the Goethe Institute and sponsored by Fairway Holdings, presents three works for String Quintet by Mozart, Michael Haydn and Bruckner.

The concert goes on the boards at the Goethe Institute Hall at 39 Gregory’s Road, on Sunday, 24 April at 7 p.m. The featured principal string players of the CMSC will be: Lakshman Joseph de Saram, violin I, Ursula Nelius, violin II, Avanti Perera, viola I, Othman H. Majid, viola II and Saranga A. Cooray, violoncello. Tickets are now available priced at Rs. 1,000 (free seating) at the venue during working hours.

Mozart’s second string quintet (of six), in C minor, K406/516 is a transcription of the well-known Twelfth Serenade (for wind octet), K 388. The arrangement was advertised for sale with its more celebrated cousins the Fifth and Sixth Quintets, on 9 April 1788 in the Wiener Zeitung as ‘schön und korrektgeschrieben’ (beautifully and correctly written) – which it certainly was. 

The second of Michael Haydn’s five String Quintets, is in C major (P. 108/MH 187), and is surely delightfully entertaining court music at the highest level, on a par with his more famous brother. The third piece, the Bruckner Intermezzo in D minor, WAB 113, is a rarely heard gem of a five minute work from 1879. It was composed between the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, and was intended as an alternative Scherzo to the String Quintet in F major, WAB 112. It demonstrates how masterly a composer Bruckner was, even without the might and weight of his characteristic orchestral sonority.