Richard Strauss’ final opera begins with silky-soft strings. The opera Capriccio was composed as late as 1942 and is about the making of an opera. Strauss reflects upon 1775; the setting is a castle in the French countryside. The String Sextet is both a prelude and part of the action.
Danish Nancy Dalberg was a pianist, but injured her arm and became a composer. Her String Quartet No. 3 is dedicated to Carl Nielsen, her teacher of composition and instrumentation. She later orchestrated several of his works.
Rebecca Clarke’s work is infused with notes of Impressionism and Neoclassicism, and here with folk music from Eastern Europe. She was a well-known viola player and the first woman in a professional orchestra in England.
Everything is tied together by the elegant, featherlight strings of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante from 1779. The Concertante form is an equal dialogue between the orchestra and one or more soloists, a new form that Mozart picked up on one of his many trips. Here, he presents an exquisite dialogue between a brilliant, shimmery violin and a richly veiled viola.
