Fleming and Emerson Quartet's Austrian Evening

A. Berg, Lyric Suite / E. Wellesz, Five Sonnets, R. Fleming, Emerson Quartet (Decca, 2015)

Charles T. Downey, Renée Fleming, Emerson String Quartet present a rapturous recital of Austrian songs (Washington Post, June 3)

Renée Fleming will soon draw the curtain on her mainstream operatic career, as productions of “Der Rosenkavalier” at Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera next season will be the American soprano’s last. On Thursday night in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, Fleming teamed up with the Emerson String Quartet to reprise pieces by Austrian composers Alban Berg and Egon Wellesz they recently recorded for Decca.

A musicologist and composition student of Arnold Schoenberg, Wellesz composed his “Five Sonnets” for soprano and string quartet in 1934, before the Nazi annexation of Austria forced him to flee to England. Set to selections from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnets From the Portuguese,” these songs are strikingly dissonant and violent... [Continue reading]

Renée Fleming, soprano
Emerson String Quartet
Fortas Chamber Music Concerts
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater