Borromeo String Quartet & Gary Graffman, piano

Saturday, April 30, 2011 | 8:00 pm

Reynolds Industries Theater

The Borromeo String Quartet is one of the most dynamic ensembles working today, “playing with lean clarity and eloquence” (Cleveland Plain Dealer): according to the Boston Globe they’re “simply the best there is.”  Here the much-heralded quartet partners with Graffman, the legendary pianist who, after a 1979 injury, has played only with his left hand. Together they interpret E.W. Korngold’s celebrated Suite for Piano Left Hand and Strings, a lush, late-romantic work composed in 1921 for another one-hand virtuoso, Paul Wittgenstein.

PROGRAM:
BACH: Fugue in E-flat Major, BWV. 552, “St. Anne” (arr. Nicholas Kitchen)
BEETHOVEN: String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 74, “Harp”
BACH/BRAHMS: “Chaconne” from Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV. 1004 (Gary Graffman, solo piano)
KORNGOLD: Suite for Piano Left Hand and Strings, Op. 23 (with Gary Graffman, piano)

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“Each of the greatest string quartets has redefined what the possibilities of the medium are…the Borromeo are recreating the medium anew and we are lucky to be here to hear it.”
—Boston Globe