Recent Berlin Phil Series live-streamed events have had a profusion of chamber music. This week the strings-and-winds Berlin Philharmonic Octet played the great Schubert Octet and two shorter works, including the world premiere of Toshio Hosokawa's Textures, which was to have been played 10 times during a tour to Japan and Taiwan. And chamber music figured prominently in last week's Tribute to Daniel Stabrawa.
The caption text in this screen grab is a translation of voiceover commentary from Daniel S. himself, part of one of the "tribute" sections of the May 30 Digital Concert Hall event.
by Ken
Stipulating that you already love Dvořák's strange and surprising and also singularly luscious Terzetto in C for two violins and viola (after all, aren't Dvořák's surprises, especially the stranger ones, usually singularly luscious?), and you know that longtime Berlin Philharmonic first concertmaster Daniel Stabrawa is going to be playing it with two colleagues from the orchestra, violinist Krzysztof Polonek and violist Ignacy Miecznikowski. Would you think maybe that "something's up"?
Since heaving up a preliminary version of this post earlier this afternoon, after I'd started rewatching last the May 30 Berlin Phil Series tribute to Daniel Stabrawa (now that it's available in the Digital Concert Hall), I've started re-rewatching, this time loading it on my computer so I could make some screen grabs, including those above. I've rewatched Daniel playing the Panufnik Concerto for Violin and Strings (which now seems to me quite a lovely piece; I'll be rewatching again) and especially I've rewatched the performance of the Dvořák Terzetto, which is absolute gold.
To return to the lineup for the Dvořák trio, you were probably smarter, not to mention more suspicious, than I am, even without my prompting. Let's take this a step farther and look at Krzysztof's and Ignacy's official Berlin Phil webpix.
SO, WHAT DO YOU NOTICE?
