Ernst Toch believed that artists are links in a long chain of ancestors, cooperating on continuity by prioritizing the timeless over the time-bound.
Composer Biography
Toch, born in Vienna in 1887, was self-taught in music, secretly copying Mozart string quartets and improvising his own developments.
Composition History
Toch's Piano Quintet, Op. 64, was commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, a premiere American patron of chamber composition, in 1938.
Composer Biography
Ernst Toch, an Austro-German modernist émigré composer, was inspired to become a composer at age ten after hearing about Brahms's death.
Recording & Production
This album is a co-production with Deutschlandradio Kultur and was recorded at the Siemens Villa in Berlin in May and December 2007.
Performer Biography
Frank Dodge, the cellist on this recording, founded Spectrum Concerts Berlin in 1988 and plays a cello by Antonio Casini dated 1676 from Modena.
Critical Reception
Toch's music is being reassessed and prized for its craftsmanship and inspiration, after years of being considered too modernist for traditional audiences and too traditional for modernists.
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