Like some films, this programme is built around flashbacks to styles of the past. These are indirect allusions to Bach’s music and to the First and Second Viennese Schools. It begins with the aria heard at the start and (almost) repeated at the end of the Goldberg Variations, which originally consist of thirty variations on this theme, performed here by the Solistas da Metropolitana as a string trio, as adapted by the violinist D. Sitkovetsky in 1985. In between comes a piece composed in that very same year, 1985, by the eclectic A. Schnittke. This piece takes us back to the Second Viennese School, as it draws upon the expressive tension, harmonic dissolution and fragmented style of composers such as Schoenberg, Berg and Webern from the early decades of the 20th century. Finally, one of Beethoven’s early string quartets. It dates from 1801, yet still retains the formal balance and contrapuntal clarity of the classical composers Haydn and Mozart – that is, of the First Viennese School.
Schnittke & Beethoven
Saturday, 31 October, 9.00 pm, Igreja do Sagrado Coração de Jesus
Solistas da Metropolitana
J. S. Bach Aria from the Goldberg Variations *
A. Schnittke String Trio
J. S. Bach Aria da capo from the Goldberg Variations *
L. v. Beethoven String Quartet No. 4, Op. 18/4
* (transcribed for string trio by D. Sitkovetsky)
Nonna Manicheva, Daniela Radu violins
Andrei Ratnikov viola
Jian Hong cello
