Konstantin Heidrich is a cellist with the Fauré Quartet and a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts. Influenced by his father, the violinist and composer Peter Heidrich, he studied with Martin Ostertag and Frans Helmerson, among others. His Fauré Quartet is regarded as one of the leading international chamber music formations.
“They achieve superlatives wherever they appear!” - The Strad
As a soloist, he has performed with orchestras such as the MDR Symphony Orchestra and worked with conductors such as Andrea Marcon and Kristjan Järvi.
Johanna C. Müller impresses with “enchanting tonal variability, an enormous stage presence and great empathy for the characters of the respective works.” (Gerhard Schulz - Alban Berg Quartet)
A winner of the international Ysaÿe Competition and the Mendelssohn University Competition, she is now concertmaster at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and other orchestras and a regular guest with the Berliner Philharmoniker.
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Thomas Hoppe has been a congenial partner at the piano for many years for artists such as Itzak Perlmann, Vilde Frang, Tabea Zimmermann and many others. He is also a professor and lecturer at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and the HfM Hanns Eisler in Berlin
... and of course member of the ATOS Trio - one of the world's most renowned piano trios.
May 21, 2025 - 7:30pm
(doors open 6:45pm)
Konstantin Heidrich (cello)
Johanna C. Müller (violin)
Thomas Hoppe (piano)
program
Maurice Ravel – Sonata frr violin and cello M.73 "A la mémoire de Claude Debussy"
With this sonata, dedicated to the memory of Claude Debussy, Ravel composed perhaps the most important work for violin and cello. He had already written the first movement in 1920 for an edition of La Revue musicale, which commemorated his colleague, who died in 1918, in numerous works. Ravel later extended this idea of paying homage to Debussy to the entire sonata.
Although perceived as rather unwieldy at the time of its premiere, today the duo appears to be one of the most poetic works in Ravel's chamber music.
Sergej Rachmaninow
– Trio No.1 g-minor "Élégiaque" op.9
Rachmaninov composed his first “elegiac trio”, a compact one-movement work, at the age of 18. He had just passed his piano exams at the St. Petersburg Conservatory so brilliantly that he was awarded the institute's Grand Gold Medal - a distinction that was hardly ever awarded. His contemporaries were overwhelmed by the young composer's genius and Tchaikovsky found him so impressive that he generously sponsored the young man.
​Erich Wolfgang Korngold
- violin sonata G-major op.6 (excerpts)
Korngold composed the sonata in 1912/13 at the age of just 15. The work already shows his extraordinary talent and his unmistakable style: a mixture of late romantic harmony, impressionistic colors and complex polyphony. Although he later became famous for his film scores, this sonata is an example of his precocious compositional seriousness.
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Francis Poulenc - Sonata for violoncello and piano FP143G (excerpts)
Poulenc's cello sonata could stand for the turning point in French chamber music towards greater simplicity, clarity and characterful bravura. Romanticism, neoclassicism and modernism join hands here.peformance