Portland String Quartet Concert, w/guest clarinetist Nicholas Brown/Mozart Quintet
Portland String Quartet Concert, w/guest clarinetist Nicholas Brown/Mozart Quintet
The Portland String Quartet performs the music of William Grant Still, Lucien Durosoir, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Still's 'Danzas de Panama' 1948) demonstrates Still's interest in Caribbean culuture, whereby he infused his music with African, Spanish and Amerindian elements. The Quartet No. 2 of Durosoir (1922) is the work of a great French violinist, who, after serving in the trenches of WWI and playing battlefield concerts, turned his genius to composition and away from the world. Mozart's Clarinet Quintet (1789), with Nicholas Brown joining the PSQ on clarinet, is a joyful, singing masterpiece. While completing the Clarinet Quintet Mozart was also busy composing the opera Così fan tutte, so it is unsurprising that the clarinet takes on the vocal/dramatic qualities of an operatic singer. If music may ever be heard as 'perfect', this is it.