The ECSQ continues their season with three high-energy pieces. The concert will start with Middleground by Shelly Washington, a Missouri-born composer who blends classical, jazz, and American Folk into a style all her own. The concert continues with “The Kreutzer Sonata”: Leos Janáček’s 1st string quartet, which was inspired by the 1889 Leo Tolstoy novella of the same name. In the story, two fated lovers fall for each other when playing Beethoven’s “Kreutzer Sonata,” which was dedicated to the French violin virtuoso, Rudolph Kreutzer. In a long stream of run on dedications, the quartet is essentially a piece of music that was based on a book that was titled after a composition that was dedicated to a violinist! The concert concludes with something a bit more straightforward: Robert Schumann’s String Quartet No. 1. The piece is a beautiful balance of classicism and romanticism.
