The Nature of Love

A quartet of superb romantic composers - Brahms, Elgar, Fauré and Rossini - dominated this concert, connecting poetic allusions of love and nature.

Brahms' Op64 quartets were published in 1874, and are full of the expansive melodies, subtle counterpoint and expressive harmonies of this great composer’s mature style. They concern the yearning love of homeland, an imagined meeting between Apollo and Thetis (with Cupid helping matters along), and the pain of an unrequited love. As with all the best lieder composers, Brahms writes a fully integrated piano part - no mere accompaniment - creating aural scenes of mountains, of galloping horses, of pounding hearts. The accompaniment was also deliciously to the fore in another romantic rarities: Delibes “Les nymphes des bois” and Rossini’s Quartetto Pastorale.

Elsewhere we had madrigal treats from the English and Italian schools, and two very different sides of modern American composition: Lauridsen’s “Nocturnes” (2005) are full…