Andreas Ottensamer V – Gran Trio – Beethoven 250
Sol Gabetta & Dejan Lazić

Chamber Music

Sunday, 2 August 2020
6 pm, Saanen Church

We know how much the discovery of the clarinet's infinite expressive resources through the virtuoso playing and friendship of Richard Mühlefeld influenced – sublimated! – the creative culmination of Johannes Brahms, who had vowed to stop composing. Much less well known is Beethoven's tribute to the clarinet in the chamber music field. The instrument was still in its early days – Mozart was one of the first to use it to its full potential – but Beethoven was quick to grasp its full potential. Thus, he gave it a prominent place not only in his 1799 Septet, but also in the “Gran Trio” that he derived from it four years later, in which the instrument stands alone against the cello (replacing the bassoon) and the piano (entrusted with most of the string parts). A very beautiful journey, therefore, given us by “artist in residence” Andreas Ottensamer  for his fifth and last “carte blanche” evening on the heights of Gstaad.