Elgar: String Quartet in E Minor & Piano Quintet in A Minor

Featuring

Daniel Rowland
Ian Belton
Paul Cassidy
Jacqueline Thomas
Martin Roscoe
Brodsky Quartet

Edward Elgar

Did you know?

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Performer Biography

The Brodsky Quartet, formed in 1972, chose their name after Adolph Brodsky, an iconic figure in Manchester's cultural life and a legendary teacher at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Composition History

Elgar composed most of his four masterpieces of 1918–19, including the String Quartet and Piano Quintet, at an isolated cottage called Brinkwells in Sussex, seeking peace and solace.

Composition History

These mature chamber works have roots in Elgar's earlier life, when he gained vast experience with diverse chamber forces as a teacher, violinist, bassoonist, composer, and arranger in Worcester's musical scene.

Interpretation

During a performance of the Piano Quintet, historian Graham Topping suggested that the piano's opening theme, punctuated by distant explosions in the strings, mimicked the gun barrage audible to civilians near the Sussex coast during WWI.

Composer Biography

Elgar composed his three great chamber works—the String Quartet, Piano Quintet, and Violin Sonata—during an intensive period in 1918 and 1919, while dealing with the trauma of the Great War and the impending loss of his wife, Alice.

Composition History

The Piano Quintet's opening movement was inspired by a legend, possibly elaborated by writer Algernon Blackwood, about dead trees above Brinkwells being Spanish monks struck down for evil rites.