Retrato

This programme includes two of the few chamber music compositions by Leonard Bernstein: his Sonata for Violin and Piano, and Sonata for Clarinet and Piano. Both sonatas, although written early in his career, undoubtedly confirm Bernstein’s skill in a music genre he unfortunately never had time to go back to. The young composer, inspired by Cuban groups he used to listen to on Radio Habana, started to write music extracts he would later on include in his Clarinet Sonata, a bright extrovert work in contrast with his Violin Sonata, which is more introvert and tentative. The repertoire also includes a transcription for brass quintet of his most popular piece, West Side Story. The influence Latin-American music had on the North American composer is quite evident in this musical -an adaptation by Arthur Laurent of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. On this occasion, Quantum Ensemble is enjoying the collaboration of prestigious brass quintet Spanish Brass Luur Metalls, in charge of performing a transcription of the most outstanding numbers by Bernstein, which composer Jack Gale did especially for them. Finally, in a concert dedicated to a composer who was born nearly a century ago, that is, our recent past, we are hugely pleased to continue enriching our present time, in Quantum’s best tradition, by premiering a work by Gustavo Díaz-Jerez, founding member of this ensemble. The instruments chosen by Díaz-Jerez -violin, clarinet, horn, piano and electronic- is, in itself, a microcosmos of the acoustic reality of a symphony orchestra with its section of string, wood, brass and percussion (with the piano as percussion as it has been conceptualised in 20^th century music): a real challenge for the composer’s creativity, the players’ skill and our open-minded audience.