SPÄTROMANTISCHE GENIESTREICHE (STROKES OF LATE ROMANTIC GENIUS)

Even composers who are masters of large-scale works and maestros of orchestration have managed to achieve great things in “little” formats. Mahler, Strauss and Korngold composed magnificent Lieder. The situation looks rather different when it comes to chamber music. The string quartet which Strauss composed at the age of 19 proved to be his only work of genius in the form, and Mahler’s quartet movement is the only surviving example of a chamber composition from his time as a student. The “boy wonder” Korngold had a great deal of experience in chamber music when, at the age of thirty, he reprised his Lied “Was du mir bist?” in instrumental form for his Op.23 suite.