The Buffalo Chamber Music Society presents the Schumann Quartet at Kleinhans Music Hall.

The Schumann Quartet’s name has nothing to do with the 19^th century composer Robert Schumann. The ensemble was named for Mark, Erik and Ken Schumann, three brothers from a hyper-musical family who have been playing together since childhood and decided to continue doing so as adults. Completing the quartet is the violist Liisa Randalu, who was born in Estonia and grew up in Germany.  The Guardian said the quartet “combined probing intensity with wit and energy, and a wonderful alertness to shifts of mood.” They will perform three classics, Beethoven’s Quartet in A major, Op.18, No.5, Ravel’s Quartet in F Major and Brahms’s Quartet in A minor, Op.51, No.2.

Program

BEETHOVEN  Quartet in A major, Op.18, No.5
RAVEL  Quartet in F major
INTERMISSION
BRAHMS  Quartet in A minor, Op.51, No.2

About the Schumann Quartet

Erik Schumann, violin
Ken Schumann, violin
Liisa Randalu, viola
Mark Schumann, cello

The Schumann Quartet has reached a stage where anything is possible, because it has dispensed with certainties. This also has consequences for audiences, which from one concert to the next have to be prepared for all eventualities: “A work really develops only in a live performance,” the quartet says. “That is ‘the real thing’, because we ourselves never know what will happen. On the stage, all imitation disappears, and you automatically become honest with yourself. Then you can create a bond with the audience – communicate with it in music.” This live situation will gain an added energy in the near future: Sabine Meyer, Menahem Pressler, Andreas Ottensamer and Anna Lucia Richter are among the quartet’s current partners. ​