H. Rohde, E. Abbühl, K. Nakasako, K. Imani

Violist Hartmut Rohde, professor at the Berlin University of the Arts and honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London, is renowned for his stylistic breadth and his work with the Mozart Piano Quartet. Oboist Emanuel Abbühl, former principal oboist of orchestras in Basel, Rotterdam and London, is an internationally acclaimed soloist and long-standing collaborator of eminent conductors. Pianist Ken Nakasako, trained in Tokyo and Berlin, works as a chamber musician and collaborative pianist at music universities in Berlin. Pianist Kimiko Imani appears regularly at festivals in Europe and Asia, collaborates closely with wind ensembles and teaches at the Berlin University of the Arts and the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin.

The stylistically varied programme brings together works ranging from the late Romantic idiom to contemporary musical currents. It opens with Mendelssohn’s lyrical Lieder ohne Worte,  in which the piano miniature approaches the character of a song without words. The Romantic expressiveness continues with an arrangement of the Liebestod  from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde,  while a completely different sound world is opened up by one of Luciano Berio’s Sequenze,  which explores the expressive limits of the instrument through extended techniques. A work by Przemysław Pujanek represents contemporary creativity, after which Maurice Ravel’s Jeux d’eau  vividly depicts the movement of water. The programme concludes with a composition by August Klughardt that reflects the influence of the New German School of the late nineteenth century.