An evening of chamber music at its finest is in store when Israeli violinist Guy Braunstein and his string quartet, Elma Quartet, join forces with celebrated Danish brothers Nicholas and Jonathan Swensen to perform pieces by Beethoven, Berio, and Schönberg.

Guy Braunstein is a familiar figure to the Tivoli Copenhagen Phil, having served both as a conductor and soloist. In 2000, at the age of 29, he became the youngest concertmaster ever appointed by the world-renowned Berlin Philharmonic. After 12 years, Braunstein sought new challenges and is now pursuing a major career as a soloist, conductor, and chamber musician.

The concert features music from three composers: Beethoven, Luciano Berio, and Schönberg. The final piece of the evening brings all six musicians together for Arnold Schönberg’s evocative sextet, Transfigured Night.

The concert begins with String Quartet No. 7, one of the quartets Beethoven wrote for the Russian ambassador in Vienna, Count Rasumovskij, hence the collection is also known as the Rasumovskij Quartets. Beethoven included a small Russian melody in the quartet as a nod to the Russian count. The theme in the final movement is, in fact, a Russian motif.

Arnold Schönberg is best known for breaking up the tonal system upon which all music had been composed and creating the twelve-tone technique. However, before reaching this point, he composed the ingenious string sextet Transfigured Night, in a late-Romantic style. The sextet is inspired by a poem by Richard Dehmel, describing a fateful encounter where a loving couple walks in a cold, moonlit night. She reveals that she is pregnant but not by him, and he accepts and forgives her. Schönberg’s sextet is a tone poem that beautifully captures the essence of this love encounter in a sensitive and concentrated atmosphere.

Photo: Jonathan Swensen. Credit: Matt Dine.
Photo: Guy Braunstein. Credit: Boaz Arad.
Photo: Nicholas Swensen. Credit: Caroline Bittencourt.