Quintet + Sextet

Both works on this program were written before their composers reached their eventual international fame. A 30-year-old Samuel Coleridge-Taylor found himself on multi-city tours in the United States after being invited by President Roosevelt, but while still a student at the Royal College of Music, he composed his Quintet for Piano and Strings. Focusing on chamber music at the time, this piece shows off his sophistication with passages of elegance and drama. Dvořák’s career was slow to pick up and for much of his early compositional career, he was hardly known outside of Prague. His fame quickly ascended however after the publication of his Slavonic Dances, though at the same time, he was composing his soon-to-be beloved Sextet. The work premiered in Berlin with violinist Joseph Joachim at the helm and became Dvořák’s first piece to premiere outside of Bohemia.