The Valley Concert Society is fortunate to be able to schedule a performance with the Viano String Quartet while they are in BC for a two-week period. The concert at the Matsqui Centennial Auditorium on Sunday, March 19, at 3:00 p.m. comes in the middle of a residency for the quartet in Vancouver.
The quartet has committed to a three-year residency with Music in the Morning, the popular and highly-regarded series founded by the esteemed June Goldsmith. This week and next, the inaugural sessions of that residency, they are performing each morning from Tuesday to Friday at 10:30 a.m., at the Vancouver Academy of Music in Kitsilano. Over the course of the two weeks, they will play most of the program they have prepared for their visit to Abbotsford, along with other works
They will play “The Train to Improbable Places” by Kevin Lau. This piece was commissioned by Music in the Morning and is being premiered this week by the Viano String Quartet. We will have the privilege of hearing this work on Sunday afternoon.
Preparing a program of music for a concert is an art that musicians achieve to varying degrees of success. Sunday’s program is a magnificent piece of planning. Besides the new commission giving us a look at the state of music in the present, they have a piece by Piazzolla, music composed for a tango ensemble and adapted for string quartet followed by two contrasting touchstones of the string quartet repertoire.
Haydn’s “Lark” Quartet is one of the finest examples of string quartets as established by Joseph Haydn, who was known as the Father of the String Quartet. It was one of six he composed in 1790.
Beethoven composed his String Quartet No. 13 in 1826, a mere thirty-six years later. But it was worlds apart from what Haydn created, even though Haydn taught Beethoven for a short while. Beethoven once said that he had learned nothing from Haydn. Listening to these two pieces might give some credibility to that claim, although, truthfully, there are plenty of counterexamples that illustrate the debt young Ludwig owed Papa Haydn.
Tickets to hear this brilliant young quartet and the marvelous program they have prepared are available online at www.valleyconcertsociety.com at $32 for adults and $20 for students.
Doors will open at 2:00 p.m., and there will be a pre-concert talk in the foyer at 2:20 p.m. Call 604-289-3377 for more information.
I look forward to seeing you at the concert.
John Wiebe - President
The Valley Concert Society