Our milestone work by Shostakovich holds a rightful place in the line of great piano quintets going back to Schumann’s of 1842. Combining the rigor of Bach with the powerful energy and extreme irony of Soviet era music, the work is a milestone not only of chamber music but also of Shostakovich’s career: it won him the coveted Stalin Prize. This essential quintet is accompanied by a youthful Beethoven sonata and Mendelssohn’s appropriately tempestuous First Piano Trio.

Program
Beethoven Sonata in D major for Violin and Piano, Op. 12, No. 1 (1797-98)
Shostakovich Quintet in G minor for Piano, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 57 (1940)
Mendelssohn Trio No. 1 in D minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 49 (1839)

Performers
Inon Barnatan, Piano
Alexander Sitkovetsky, Violin
Angelo Xiang Yu, Violin
Paul Neubauer, Viola
Paul Watkins, Cello