![From ashes to masterpiece](https://www.munor.no/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/AskeMesterverk-kvadrat.jpg)
Johannes Brahms’s only piano quintet had a difficult birth: Brahms first set down his musical ideas in a string quintet, then – he later burned the score in dissatisfaction – transformed them into a sonata for two pianos, and finally – on the urging of Clara Schumann among others – incorporated the material into a piano quintet, which is now acknowledged as one of the great masterpieces of chamber music. Last year Munor performed one of Brahms’s piano quartets with Hulda Jonsdottir (violin) and Ian Anderson (viola). Tonight they return to join Munor’s own piano trio ensemble in playing Brahms’s piano quintet in F minor (1865).
The Swiss composer Frank Martin – an ‘outsider of new music’ – managed to establish himself as a respected 20th-century composer even though he never formally attended a music conservatory. Munor has previously billed several of his compositions on its programmes. Tonight they perform an early work: the Bach-inspired piano quintet from 1922.
In other words, two marvellous piano quintets this evening in the splendid council chamber of Haugesund city hall.