Göteborgs Konserthus String Festival in Winter Time

On silver platters, musicians from the Gothenburg Symphony serve a four-course meal of strings. We are treated to Strauss’ last opera, Nancy Dalberg’s impassioned string quartet and eager conversation for viola and violin composed by Clarke and Mozart.

On silver platters, musicians from the Gothenburg Symphony serve a four-course meal of strings. We are treated to Strauss’ last opera, Nancy Dalberg’s impassioned string quartet and eager conversation for viola and violin composed by Clarke and Mozart.

Richard Strauss’ last opera opens with silky strings. The opera Capriccio was written as late as 1942 and is about how an opera is made. Strauss looks back to 1775, the setting is a castle in the French countryside. The string sextet is both a prelude and part of the action itself.

Danish Nancy Dalberg was a pianist, but injured her arm and turned to composing. The third string quartet is dedicated to Carl Nielsen, her teacher in composition and instrumentation. Later she orchestrated several of his works.

Rebecca Clarke’s work is influenced by both impressionism and neoclassicism, and here by Eastern European folk music. As a recognized violist, she was the first woman in a professional orchestra in England.

Everything is tied together by the feather-light, elegant strings in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante from 1779. The concertante form is an equal conversation between the orchestra and one or more soloists, a novelty that Mozart picked up during one of his many travels. Here in an exquisite dialogue between a resiliently shimmering violin and a mustily veiled viola.

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