MUSIC

CONTEXT, a Houston-based chamber-music ensemble, presents CONTEXT: The Prince and the Prodigy, Sunday, October 16 at 4pm in Rice University - Duncan Recital Hall.

CONTEXT presents a period-instrument performance of two rarely heard works: the Quartet in E-flat for Piano and Strings by Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia-and the Sextet for Piano and Strings composed by Felix Mendelssohn when he was 15.

Louis Ferdinand—a Prince of Prussia, a nephew of Frederick the Great, a close friend of Beethoven, a pianist and composer whose exuberant invention deeply influenced the entire Romantic Generation, a warrior who traveled with his pianos and his staff of musicians, a commander who died at age thirty-four in battle with Napoleon! One of those he influenced: the fifteen year-old Felix Mendelssohn, whose dazzling Piano Sextet responds to Louis’ path-breaking aesthetic.

With 1810 Rosenberger Piano and 1825 Graf Piano and original string instuments.

Brian Connelly, piano; Joan DerHovsepian, viola; James Dunham, viola; Paul Ellison, double Bass; Jean-Michel Fonteneau, cello; and Eric Halen, violin.