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Ives 2024 Fall Concert
For our opening concert this season pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi urged us to program Martinů’s only Piano Quartet, written in 1942, shortly after the composer and his wife arrived in America. Fleeing Vichy France and the Nazi’s they landed in New York with very little money and almost no English. Fortunately for Martinů, he was greeted by notable Czech musicians and intellectuals eager to help support him, and once he settled in Jamaica, Queens, he flourished.
Some years ago I fell in love with Martinů’s Second Cello Sonata, the first piece he wrote in the U.S. I remember how the rhythm got under my skin and what it felt like to sink into the passionate slow movement. The Piano Quartet, the work he wrote just after the Sonata, has that same rhythmic energy. Before coming to America Martinů had lived and worked in Paris, embracing Neoclassicism and Stravinsky. By the time he wrote the Piano Quartet he had mastered a unique style, one that responded to the Industrial Age in its machine-like rhythms, incorporated elements of jazz and music from his native land.
Event Links
Tickets: https://go.evvnt.com/2652409-0
Booking: https://go.evvnt.com/2652409-2
