HAYDN - String Quartet, Op.77 No.2, Hob III: 82, "Lobkowitz"
GLASS - String Quartet No.3, "Mishima"
DVOŘÁK - Piano Quintet No.2 in A major Op.81

Manchester Chamber Concerts Society’s Music Director Martin Roscoe joins forces with the Schumann Quartet for Dvorak’s Piano Quintet No.2, widely regarded as one of the greatest masterworks of the quintet form. One of the UK’s best loved pianists in both intimate solo recitals and large scale orchestral performances, Martin Roscoe is both a regular and a firm favourite in both the MCCS season and more widely in the Stoller Hall programme.

The three brothers Mark, Erik and Ken Schumann have been playing together since their earliest childhood. Joined by violist Matthew McDowell, this close-knit group of performers create ‘music-making of the highest order’ (Guardian, ★★★★★).

In the first half of the concert, the Schumann Quartet open with Haydn’s String Quartet, Op. 77, one of the composer’s last quartet works before his death. Haydn is known as the ‘father’ of the string quartet, and this work shows off all of his deep understanding of string quartet melody and form, giving each instrument time to shine.

Meanwhile Philip Glass’s ‘Mishima’ String Quartet is a radically different work, chosen to celebrate the composer’s 90th birthday year. Based on the score composer Philip Glass wrote for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, a 1985 biographical film about the controversial life and death of post-war Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, the music is filled with the pulsing, expansive and slowly evolving string textures that Glass is most famous for.