The Fine Arts Quartet For Free!

Fine Arts Quartet. Photo courtesy of the Fine Arts Quartet.

Chamber music originally developed as music that could played at home. Since the mid-18^th century, the string quartet (two violins, one viola, one cello) has been the ensemble most identified with the chamber genre. And going back more then half a century the Fine Arts Quartet has been considered “one of the gold-plated names in chamber music,” as the Washington Post once wrote.

The 2025 Fine Arts Quartet Spring Festival, May 5-11, devotes one of three free public concerts to the quartet form. The other two performances feature string and piano quintets, bringing guest musicians to the stage to join quartet members Ralph Evans, Efim Boico, Gil Sharon, and Niklas Schmidt. The local Friends of the FAQ group sponsors the Festival.

Fans of string quartets, considered the most demanding form of instrumental music, should put the Monday, May 5 performance on their calendars. That recital, at 7 p.m. at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, 915 E. Knapp St., opens with the String Quartet No. 1 in D minor by Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga (1806-1826), a Basque child prodigy. Written while he studied composition in Paris as a teenager, the quartet uses Spanish melodies and dance rhythms throughout its four movements.

Also on the May 5 program are Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 7, composed in 1960 to honor the memory of his first wife, and Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E minor.

Those who appreciate the string quintet, which adds a second viola to the quartet, will especially enjoy the concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 9, at the UW-Milwaukee Recital Hall (aka Arts Center Lecture Hall), 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd. Hungarian violist Razan Popovici will join the ensemble. There is a pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m.

The seldom-heard String Quintet in C Major by Ludwig van Beethoven opens the concert. Richard Wigmore calls the piece “Janus-headed, at once retrospective and prophetic.”

Also on the program is Mendelssohn’s String Quintet No. 1 in A major. Composed in 1826, it is one of three string quintets dedicated to the Crown Prince of Sweden. It is noted for its “freshness of affect and the spirit of youth,” in the words of composer Jonathan Blumhofer.

The final public concert, at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 11 at the UW-Milwaukee Helene Zelazo Center, 2419 E. Kenwood Blvd., offers contrasting chamber groupings: a string quintet, a piano trio, and a piano quintet. A pre-concert talk begins at 2 p.m.

The FAQ plus violist Popovici will perform the String Quintet in D major, one of six string quintets by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Unusual in 1790 when the piece was written, the form was especially satisfying for Mozart. Observes violinist Timothy Summers, the ensemble of five string players “allow[s] operatic activity to break loose: plots, schemes, subplots, finales, arias, and so on. Mozart’s string quintets are extraordinary feats of musical invention.”

Quartet violinist Boico joins Popovici and pianist Fabio Witkowski to perform Märchenerzählungen (Fairy Tales), by Robert Schumann. Originally composed for clarinet, viola, and piano, the work’s varied vignettes are musically linked, although Schumann does not share any clues about the tales they tell.

The final Festival concert concludes with Antonin Dvořák’s Piano Quintet in A Major, played by the FAQ and pianist Gisele Witkowski.  Infused with Czech folk themes, the work is considered an outstanding example of late Romantic chamber music.

All Spring Festival concerts are free of charge, and no tickets are required.