麻豆社

Specially recorded performances from some of the musical stars of the future. The NOVO Quartet from Denmark play Smetana鈥檚 String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, 'From My Life.' Composed in 1876, he wrote that: 'My intention was to paint a tone picture of my life. The first movement depicts my youthful leanings toward art, the Romantic atmosphere, the inexpressible yearning for something I could neither express nor define, and also a kind of warning of my future misfortune... The long insistent note in the finale owes its origin to this. It is the fateful ringing in my ears of the high-pitched tones which in 1874 announced the beginning of my deafness.'
And that is followed by the Austrian pianist Lukas Sternath's recent Wigmore Hall debut performance. As one reviewer wrote: 'This is no ordinary star but one born on wings of song for which this hallowed much loved hall is famous'... Just two works on his programme linked by the motif of death, with Liszt鈥檚 Fun茅railles transformed into Schubert鈥檚 last Sonata, written just months before his untimely death.

Smetana: String Quartet no. 1 in E minor (From my life)
NOVO Quartet

Liszt: Fun茅railles S 173 No. 7 (1849)
Schubert: Piano Sonata in B flat, D.960 (1828)
Lukas Sternath (piano)

For over a quarter of a century, Radio 3鈥檚 prestigious talent scheme has provided an invaluable springboard for many of today鈥檚 leading international soloists and chamber music ensembles. Indeed, a list of the former alumni reads like a Who鈥檚 Who of the international music scene, with names like Lisa Batiashvili, Igor Levit, Sean Shibe, Alison Balsom, Anastasia Kobekina and the Belcea Quartet.