Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 things to know about String Quintets That Rock

Violist Emilie Grimes performs in Vetta Chamber Music’s virtual concert featuring works by Mozart and Brahms

By Gail Johnson

Violist Emilie Grimes. Photo by Chris Loh

Vetta Chamber Music presents String Quintets That Rock online from April 15 at 2 pm PDT tp April 18 at midnight PDT. An online reception featuring a live chat with the artists takes place April 18 at 2 pm PDT.

ACCORDING TO Vetta Chamber Music, Mozart and Brahms saved their best ideas for quintets. The Vancouver musical organization’s upcoming virtual concert features Mozart‘s String Quintet No. 4 in G minor, K. 516 and Brahms’s String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 111. Joan Blackman and David Gillham on violin, Yariv Aloni and Emilie Grimes on viola, and Zoltan Rozsnyai cello.

Here are five things to know about the upcoming show.

#1

Alfred Einstein once said that while Beethoven created his music, Mozart's “was so pure that it seemed to have been ever-present in the universe, waiting to be discovered by the master.” Mozart's String Quintet in G minor, K. 516 is widely considered one of the greatest pieces of chamber music ever written. Einstein described its slow movement in E flat major as "the prayer of Jesus while the apostles are asleep". 

#2

Robert Schumann once described Johannes Brahms as a messiah who would reveal himself all at once as a mature artist rather than evolve gradually, and he proved to be right. Brahms wrote String Quintet in G major, Op. 111 in 1890 during the final decade of his life. It has all the moods of his work, from melancholic to introspective to playful, with Hungarian folk elements.

#3

Originally from Ottawa, Grimes has a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School and has performed around the world. She toured with the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra in Germany and appeared on WQXR in New York, playing baroque viola with Juilliard’s historical performance ensemble, Juilliard415. The former adjunct professor of viola at UBC joined the viola section of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in 2012, and recently won the position of assistant principal viola.

#4

Described as the ultimate program for a strings player, the concert was recorded live at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts as part of the At Home With Vetta series.

#5

Rozsnyai took up cello at age six, going on to join the Windsor Symphony when he was 15 and later study at the University of Toronto. In addition to playing for many years in the Canadian Opera Company and National Ballet orchestras, he spent a year in India with his electric cello, collaborating with musicians as he travelled throughout the country. In 1999 he joined the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and has been the assistant principal cellist since 2001.

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