“Chamber music is music’s soul” claims the esteemed pianist and wife of Daniel Barenboim, Elena Bashkirova, whose work reflects this belief. For years, she has been performing as a soloist but also a collaborating pianist in various chamber ensembles and is also the founder and artistic director of the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival – an event focusing on the performance of works for small ensembles. Tonight, Bashkirova will perform with soloists from the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra, presenting, among others Alfred Schnittke’s Piano Quintet – a piece full of dramatic expression.

The phenomenon of the expansion of symphonic music, characteristic of the Romantic era, led to the exhaustion of the expressive potential of large ensembles at the end of the 19th century. At that time, there was a shift towards chamber music, which was particularly evident in the 20th century, both in the musical avant-garde and in trends following patterns closer to tradition. Such is the Duet for Violin and Cello by Erwin Schulhoff, a Czech composer of German origin. Written at the peak of his creative powers in 1925, it was dedicated to Leoš Janáček, who holds a place right next to Bedřich Smetana and Antonín Dvořák in the pantheon of the greatest Czech composers. This work is clearly inspired by Janáček’s legacy, the foundation of which is also native folklore – the duet is filled with echoes of Czech folk songs. Schulhoff uses a whole range of means that give the piece a unique, colourful character. The Baal Shem Suite by Ernest Bloch was composed in a similar period, and its inspiration was Baal Shem Tov, the nickname of the founder of the Polish Hasidic movement and mystic Israel Ben Eliezier. During the concert, the musicians will perform Nigun – the middle, improvisational movement of the work, the title of which refers to expressive Jewish, or more precisely Hasidic singing saturated with emotions so strong that words cannot express them.

Alfred Schnittke’s Piano Quintet is a work whose score has been picked by numerous chamber musicians since the mid-1970s, when it had its premiere. The deeply personal piece, consisting of five movements, is in fact a remembrance of the composer’s beloved mother, who died in September 1972. The difficult emotions associated with her passing can be heard in the moving sound layer of the composition, often referred to as a quintet in memoriam. The concert will be crowned by the Octet in E flat major op. 20, written by a barely teenage Felix Mendelssohn. Composed with his friend Eduard Ritz in mind, it immediately enchanted the audience with its brilliant sound during its first performance in 1836 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. When the young man created the octet, it was still a new genre, and that additionally enhanced its popularity, which continues to this day