CONCERT PROGRAM VIII Folk Spirit

Great works have been inspired not only by lofty ideals, but also by the colorful music composers heard played as entertainment outside the concert hall. Among the most mesmerizing performers heard by composers such as Joseph Haydn and Johannes Brahms were the itinerant Roma, whose musical skills combined almost supernatural virtuosity with visceral excitement. Later, before tragically perishing in a Nazi prison, Erwin Schulhoff composed stunning, eclectic music that drew on idioms from folk to jazz, and the Spanish virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate provided violinists with ideal vehicles for simply showing off. Music@Menlo’s twentieth season appropriately closes with Brahms’s first piano quartet, its Rondo alla Zingarese finale, perhaps the greatest chamber music crowd-pleaser of them all.

This concert is preceded by a free afternoon Koret Young Performers Concert (KYPC) at 12:30 p.m. by the 2022 Young Performers Program artists. KYPC programs will be announced in