“A Farewell to the Beautiful World” – Trans-cendence IV

In 2022, the siblings Mark, Erik, and Ken Schumann teamed up with violist Veit Hertenstein to become the Schumann Quartet, an ensemble dedicated to tackling monumental chamber music ever since. Eight years after their debut in Gstaad (back then as a trio), these pupils of Günter Pichler, himself a member of the iconic Alban Berg Quartet, return to the Festival. This time, their mission is to immerse themselves in even more “majestic” chamber music. As the programme concludes, the Schumann Quartet morphs into a quintet, with Andreas Ottensamer rounding out the ensemble in Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet. This composition stands out for the grace reminiscent of an expansive nocturne and was born in the twilight of Brahms’s life during his final encounter with the virtuoso Richard Mühlfeld. Max Kalbeck, a friend and the initial biographer of Brahms, described the Clarinet Quintet as a “farewell to the beauty of the world”.