Folk & Fire

A concert featuring three iconic piano trios! 

The wealthy Esterházy family – Haydn's employer – hired professional gypsy musicians to travel from inn to inn. Together with military recruits they performed recruitment dances (verbunkos), and made music in the palace. Haydn's Gypsy trio, best known for its famous final movement, the ‘Rondo all’ Ungarese’, is overflowing with rousing virtuoso rhythms, catchy folk melodies, and recruitment dances.

A dumka is a poetic ballad or tribute, often a heroic story, a tragic historical event, or a plea from a conquered people. In six movements, Dvořák exposes the Bohemian soul, in which slow, melancholic narratives alternate with wild, exuberant dances. 

Brahms composed his first piano trio at the age of 19. Through the mediation of friends the trio was published immediately. When 35 years later publisher Simrock was preparing a new edition, he seized the opportunity to revise it again. The changes were so substantial that he jokingly called it opus 108 instead of opus 8. In his famous and very passionate first piano trio we can hear both the young, impetuous composer and the mature maestro.

Dutch violinist Hawijch Elders is regarded as one of the great musical talents of her generation. Together with Pamela and Tobias they present a program with folk influences and fiery gusto.