Biography

Jonathan Crow  -  violin             
Sharon Wei  -  viola
Andrew Wan -  violin            
Brian Manker -  cello

Charles Richard-Hamelin, piano

James Ehnes, violin, viola

Canadian violinist James Ehnes has performed in over thirty countries on five continents and his discography extends to over forty recordings. The Times of London declared his playing to be ‘of phenomenal control allied to musicianship of the highest order’.

Quebec-born pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin makes his LMMC debut today as Silver Medalist at the 2015 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw and Second Prize winner at the Montreal International Musical Competition in 2014. He has performed with more than fifty orchestras and ensembles around the world, from Montreal and Toronto to Seoul
and Singapore.

The New Orford String Quartet gave its first concert in 2009 with the goal of developing a new model for a touring string quartet. Its members all hold first-chair positions in the major orchestras of Toronto (Jonathan Crow, violin), Montreal (Andrew Wan, violin; Brian Manker, cello), and Sharon Wei, associate professor of viola at Western University.
First appearance in this formation.

Notes

Today’s program offers two large-scale, seldom-performed works from the chamber music repertory. Each is unique in various ways.

Beethoven’s only string quintet (1801) saw numerous examples of the genre previously (Boccherini and Mozart in particular), but few afterwards; of the well-known 19th century composers, only Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bruckner, Brahms, Glazunov and Dvořák contributed, none more than two. Chronologically the work comes between the six Opus 18 quartets and the Second Symphony (1801), so it often generates the description ‘transitional’, and with good cause: the spirit of Haydn and Mozart hovers about the first two movements, while the third and fourth are more indicative of Beethoven the Romantic rebel.

Chausson’s Concert (1889-1891) bears a unique title for a chamber work (it is often misspelled as ‘Concerto’). It is a sextet, but not for six equal voices. Piano and one violin stand out against a string quartet, though they are not deployed in the standard concerto fashion. The quartet functions mostly as a unit in itself, counterbalancing the two soloists, but often absorbing them into the sonority of the full ensemble, which at times takes on almost symphonic proportions. The Concert is one of the great effusions of late 19th century chamber music, richly endowed with superheated emotions and densely saturated sonorities. At fifty minutes, it is also one of the longest works in the chamber music repertory.

Robert Markow