"KORK Kammer" with Cikada cellist Torun Stavseng

Performers:

Torun Sæter Stavseng – cello

Janina Kronberger – violin

Magnus Boye Hansen – violin and viola

Mathias Susaas Halvorsen – piano

Kenneth Karlsson – piano

Programme:

• Liza Lim: Ghosts Make Form

• Robert Schumann: Piano Quartet

• Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Suite for piano (left hand), two violins and cello

Cikada's own Torun Sæter Stavseng is also the associate principal cellist of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (KORK). In this concert, she presents her own chamber music evening, featuring works of her own choosing.

Robert Schumann’s chamber music holds a special place in the classical canon, much of it composed during an intensely creative period in 1842. His Piano Quartet is perhaps less frequently performed than the famous Piano Quintet, but it is no less masterful—with its sweeping romantic lines and intricately interwoven voices. (Just listen to Torun in the slow movement!)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Suite may be less familiar. It was written for pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in World War I and went on to commission an impressive body of left-hand repertoire. Korngold was the first to write a piano concerto for Wittgenstein in 1923, and the Suite, composed in 1930, became a great success. The music is full of Viennese flair and romantic swells, but it also ventures into rougher, more dissonant territory—especially in the movement titled Groteske. Virtuosic for all players, yet never dull!

The programme also features a brand-new work written for Torun and Cikada pianist Kenneth Karlsson by Australian composer Liza Lim. About Ghosts Make Form, she writes:

Get your tickets here!

Photo: Per Ole Hagen