“The Piano Septet” chamber music at the Goethe
View(s):The Chamber Music Society of Colombo sponsored by Fairway Holdings and in association with the Goethe-Institut presents a chamber music concert, “The Piano Septet” at the Goethe-Institute, Colombo 7, on Sunday, October 18 at 7 p.m.
The evening will feature Ramya de Livera Perera, piano; Lakshman Joseph de Saram and Othman H. Majid, violins; Avanti Perera, viola; Saranga A. Cooray, cello; Naveen Fernando, trumpet; Surekha Amerasinghe, flute; Ananda Premasiri, clarinet and Nilanthi Weerakoon, double bass.
The Piano Septet is an unusual collection of instruments, compared to the standard Piano Trio and Piano Quartet, which have already been featured in the Society’s Goethe-Institute series.
Septets were designed for groups of professional as well as aristocratic musicians for performance in residences of the European nobility at musical soirees and fund raisers.
The Bratislava-born virtuoso pianist Johann N. Hummel (a student of Beethoven, and a mentor to Czerny, who in turn taught Liszt); wrote two of them.
The second of these is the brilliantly tuneful “Military Septet”, scored for piano, flute, trumpet, clarinet, violin, cello and double bass, of October 1829.
Just over 50 years later (1880), the French composer Camille Saint-Säens, a famed organist and prodigious pianist, no doubt inspired by Hummel’s ebullient work, premiered a delightfully melliflu ous, yet dramatically inclined Septet for piano, trumpet, two violins, viola, cello and double bass.
The juxtaposition of these two connected works, uncommon by themselves due to the combination of instruments, is a rarity.
Tickets are available at the venue and are priced at Rs. 750 (first come first served).