Abstract
The new season also marks the start of the chamber concert series in the Spiegelsaal, where members of the Orchestra of the Zurich Opera House can be experienced up close in various formations. To mark Dmitri Shostakovich’s 120th birthday, his Quintet in G minor for piano and strings, Op. 57, is at the heart of the 1st Chamber Concert in September. Shostakovich wrote the work in 1940 for the Beethoven Quartet and himself played the piano at its Moscow premiere. The programme is complemented by Camille Saint-Saëns’ youthful Quintet in A minor, Op. 14, which the composer wrote in 1855 when he was barely twenty – a work full of Romantic verve.