Ehnes / Preucil / Tamestit / Larivière / Poltera

The two string quintets, composed in 1882 and 1890, are undoubtedly among Johannes Brahms’s most serene chamber music works. With the Quintet in G major, which bears the famous opus number 111, Brahms – then aged just 57 – even considered his entire body of work to be complete: ‘It is »certainly time to go«,’ he wrote to his publisher Fritz Simrock.

2 violins, 2 violas, 1 cello
As in Mozart’s quintets, a pair ofviolinsand a pairof violasduet in these works against the backdrop of the cello part, and so the first viola here usually takes on a role similar to that of the first violin: an almost soloistic one, which will be in the very capable hands of Antoine Tamestit at the Vienna Konzerthaus at the end of November.