NOSPR in Chamber Mode / Mahler, Penderecki & Strauss by Mahler, Penderecki, Strauss, Minn (2023/2023), NOSPR, Katowice, Poland

The names of Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler are synonymous to late Romantic orchestral music. The former found fame as the author of symphonic poems with extensive literary programmes, while the latter is known for gigantic symphonies. In the only surviving movement of the Piano Quartet in A minor, one will find little of the Mahler we know – it is a romantically singalong-like piece by a sixteen-year-old. The Piano Quartet in C minor by the twenty-year-old Strauss is already marked by his lively expression, even though it is also highly modelled on Johannes Brahms’ chamber pieces. Krzysztof Penderecki’s String Trio is a masterpiece of contrasts. As Mieczysław Tomaszewski put it in the composer’s biography, it stretches “from a predatory wildness to a melancholic reverie, from an almost demonic aggressiveness to an oneiric obstruction of the flow”. Within this concert, youth and maturity meet and comprehend one another.