Baylor String Quartet Plays On Nov. 9

by Richard Veit

The Baylor String Quartet, comprised of four members of the Baylor University music faculty, will present a concert at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 9, in the Treasure Room of Armstrong Browning Library. Performers will include Professor of Violin Bruce Berg, Assistant Professor of Violin Eka Gogichashvili, Associate Professor of Viola Kathryn Steely and Professor of Cello Gary Hardie.
The program will open with a middle-period work by Ludwig van Beethoven, the String Quartet in F major, Op. 59, No. 1. This composition, dating from 1805, is the seventh of his 16 string quartets and the first of three that he dedicated to Count Andrei Razumovsky. In honor of Razumovsky, the piece contains themes suggestive of Russian folk tunes.
Next the musicians will play the first string quartet of Erwin Schulhoff, a German-speaking Czech Jew who was born in Prague in 1894 and died of tuberculosis in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942. The third of its four movements is a scherzo-like piece that presents themes reminiscent of Slovak folk music.
Music by the gifted African-American composer, William Grant Still, will conclude the program. The Baylor String Quartet will perform his lively, four-movement suite Danzas de Panamá ("Dances of Panama").
The concert by the Baylor String Quartet is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor School of Music at (254) 710-3991.