Kammermusik am Picassoplatz

This concert sheds light on the intimate origins of grand symphonic worlds. The focus is on Gustav Mahler’s Quartet Movement in A minor, the composer’s only surviving chamber music work. As a complement to the Basel Symphony Orchestra’s current cycle of all Mahler symphonies, this movement offers an unusual glimpse of the young student in Vienna, in whose musical language the seeds of his later symphonic architecture are already discernible. For this programme, the musicians of the SOB welcome the renowned Swiss pianist Oliver Schnyder as a guest. Together with the ensemble led by concertmaster Friederike Starkloff, he will perform Antonín Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major. The work is regarded as the epitome of Bohemian Romanticism: a masterful synthesis of classical form and the spirit of folk music.