4. Sunday Matinee »Viola Recital«

Chamber music holds an important place in the repertoire of our »Artist in Residence« Amihai Grosz. Together with his piano partner Benjamin Hochmann, he will present three works for viola and piano in this recital, which he has also recorded on CD. What is particularly fascinating about Amihai Grosz’s playing is the dark, overtone-rich timbre of his instrument, which comes very close to that of the human voice. His instrument, from the famous school of Gasparo da Salò, is particularly well suited to this ideal sound.

Composed in the mid-19th century, Ödön Pártos’ work Yizkor (In Memoriam), with its musical structure blending Western compositional techniques and Jewish liturgy, serves as a memorial to the Holocaust. On a different historical level, Franz Schubert’s elegiac Arpeggione Sonata pays homage to the historic instrument from which it takes its name – which can be imagined as a cross between a guitar and a cello. Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Sonata for Viola and Piano just a few weeks before his death. He had led an eventful life, marked by light and shadow. Thus, it is above all the transience of life that takes centre stage in this work, bringing the programme full circle to where it began.