The Piano Septet by Chamber Music Society of Colombo

The Chamber Music Society of Colombo sponsored by Fairway Holdings and in association with the Goethe-Institut presents a chamber music concert, ‘The Piano Septet’ at the Goethe-Institute, Colombo 07, on Sunday, 18 October at 7 p.m.  

Tickets are available at the venue and are priced at Rs. 750 (first come first served). 

The evening will feature Ramya de Livera Perera (piano); Lakshman Joseph de Saram and Othman H. Majid (violins); Avanti Perera (viola); Saranga A. Cooray (cello); Naveen Fernando (trumpet); Surekha Amarasinghe (flute); Ananda Premasiri (clarinet) and Nilanthi Weerakoon (double bass).

The Piano Septet is an unusual collection of instruments, compared to the standard Piano Trio and Piano Quartet, which have already been featured in the Society’s Goethe-Institute series. Septets were designed for groups of professional as well as aristocratic musicians for performance in residences of the European nobility at musical soirees and fund raisers. The Bratislava-born virtuoso pianist Johann N. Hummel (a student of Beethoven, and a mentor to Czerny, who in turn taught Liszt); wrote two of them. 

The second of these is the brilliantly tuneful ‘Military Septet’, scored for piano, flute, trumpet, clarinet, violin, cello and double bass, of October 1829. Just over 50 years later (1880), the French composer Camille Saint-Säens, a famed organist and prodigious pianist, no doubt inspired by Hummel’s ebullient work, premiered a delightfully mellifluous, yet dramatically inclined Septet for piano, trumpet, two violins, viola, cello and double bass. The juxtaposition of these two connected works, uncommon by themselves due to the combination of instruments, is a rarity; and to have them both in one evening promises to be a treat indeed. Book your tickets for an extremely rare and most rewarding evening of memorable Chamber Music.