Spindrift Music Company
         38 Dexter Road, Lexington, MA 02420
Press Release  February 15, 2010
Contact: Pamela Marshall  pmarshall [ at ] spindrift.com     

Piano Quintet Concert at Follen Church

Piano Quintets by Farrenc and Marshall

Concert Friday March 12, 2010 at 8:00pm at Follen Community Church, 755 Mass. Ave., Lexington, MA 02420.

Spindrift Music presents a chamber music concert featuring two major piano quintets: the New England premiere of Quinteto sobre los Poemas de Carlos Pintado by Pamela Marshall, and Piano Quintet No. 2 by Louise Farrenc, written in 1840.

The performers are a stellar group of Boston musicians: Carmen Rodríguez-Peralta, piano; Abigail Karr, violin; Sarah Darling, viola; Rafael Popper-Keizer, cello; Susan Hagen, double bass. Tickets $15, students/children free. More information and advance purchase online at www.spindrift.com.

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Lexington Council for the Arts, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, and by generous members of the Spindrift Commissioning Guild.

About the music

Each of the four movements of Marshall's Quinteto is inspired by a poem by Cuban poet Carlos Pintado from Miami. Marshall's music is atmospheric and expressive, at times brooding and dark and at others sparkling, to match the poems. There are often hints of nature sounds. The first movement, "Nights in Mortefontaine", opens as if in a jungle, with abrupt gestures from the strings illustrating Pintado's words "nights of fierce birds and tigers hidden in the dark". “Colours Out of Space” uses many different tone colors from the strings and the piano, including strumming on the piano strings; “I do not call you muse” is dark and sad, as the poet laments that the muse does not visit him, but with a dramatic buildup, the music illustrates a triumph, that the artist can discover and create without his muse; and finally “Grant me the shadow” is a prayer to see and experience all of life, including both heaven and hell. The music is both hymn-like and yearning, and concludes gently as the poet wishes for pure and simple things: love, light and sunsets.

Louise Farrenc was highly regarded in France for her piano playing and her chamber music compositions. The Piano Quintet No. 2, Op. 31, written in 1840, is an extravaganza of piano virtuosity with beautiful ensemble writing for the strings. She is not well known now, and concert-goers will wonder why they have not heard of her before.

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