Mozart And Schumann On

The Program Of Walden Chamber Players

Celebrating their tenth season, Walden Chamber Players are performing to enthusiastic audiences in Europe and all along the US East Coast this spring with adventuresome programming. Newtown Friends of Music has invited the energetic young group to perform in concert on Sunday, March 11, at 3 pm, Edmond Town Hall.

The musicians — Irina Muresanu on violin, Christof Huebner on viola, Ashima Scripp on cello, and Jonathan Bass on piano — will stay overnight and work with Newtown High School students in the second master class this year’s School Outreach Programs on the morning following the concert.

Walden Chamber Players, established in 1996, are all present and former members of such prestigious organizations as Boston Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and others. Members perform at leading festivals throughout the United States and abroad, and are on the faculty of many of New England’s premier musical teaching institutions, such as the New England Conservatory, Boston University, and Boston Conservatory of Music.

The choice of music for Newtown concert was arrived at in collaboration with Newtown Friends of Music Program Committee and the artistic director of the Walden Chamber Players, Mr Huebner. Starting and ending the program with compositions in E-flat, one of the most favored keys Mozart and Schumann both liked to work in, will set the tone for the musical afternoon. In between will be compositions by François Devienne, who lived from 1759 to 1803 and was a contemporary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Robert Schumann wrote a great deal of music for piano, but only one piano quartet (Quartet for Strings and Piano, opus 47) and it is unsurpassed and considered by many to be the best piano quartet ever written.

Mozart wrote two such compositions, on commission, and the K. 493 is by far the better liked. It is a more mellow and genial work, wherein the first movement has an almost reckless profusion of lyrical themes, which expand and proliferate at leisure.  Mozart’s contemporary critics found that the E-flat Quartet was “written with that fire of the imagination and that correctness which had won for Mozart the reputation of one of the best composers in Germany.”

Both of these piano quartets will be on the program on Sunday but also music that Devienne as well as Mozart composed for the newly improved flute. For the Flute Quartet in A Major, K.298, the flautist will be Marianne Gedigian of Boston Symphony Orchestra.

An informal reception to meet and chat with the artists will be held after the concert in the town hall lobby.

At the box office tickets for adults are $18, and those for seniors over age 65 are $16. Children, when accompanied by a ticket-holding adult, are welcomed for free, as are the music students from Newtown High School. The box office opens one hour before concert time.

Tickets can also be purchased in advance, and reservations are strongly recommended.

There is plenty of free parking behind Edmond Town Hall.  The facility is handicap accessible.

For further information and reservations call 426-6470 or visit NewtownFriendsOfMusic.org.