Sergey Malov is a versatile, multi-award-winning virtuoso who performs a wide-ranging repertoire, spanning from Baroque works to premieres of contemporary compositions. Moreover, he plays several instruments masterfully, including both modern and Baroque violins, the viola and the small-sized cello da spalla. Together with the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra, he will present two chamber music gems composed by Schubert in 1824, arranged here for a larger ensemble. The concert will open with a piece by Leonid Desyatnikov, who, on the 200th anniversary of the Austrian composer’s birth, drew inspiration from one of his songs.

The final song of Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise, The Hurdy-Gurdy Man (Der Leiermann), is regarded by Desyatnikov as “a masterpiece of 19th-century minimalism”. Nevertheless, in his own composition based on its motifs, titled Wie der alte Leiermann, he did not opt for a radically minimalistic approach. Instead, he employed an expressive musical language, full of unsettling sharp colours and dissonances. Undoubtedly, his experience in composing film music also makes itself felt. The piece was also intended as a musical portrait of violinist Gidon Kremer, to whom it is dedicated.

The title Arpeggione, by which Franz Schubert’s Sonata in A minor is known, refers to a now-forgotten instrument of the same name, invented by Viennese luthier Johann Georg Staufer. Staufer created the arpeggione shortly before the Austrian Romantic composer wrote his work. This intriguing instrument combines features of the guitar and cello: it has frets on the fingerboard but is played with a bow. The innovation did not gain long-term popularity, and Schubert’s three-movement sonata remains by far the most famous composition ever written for this 19th-century curiosity. The Sonata in A minor is considered one of the finest in Schubert’s oeuvre.

Without a doubt, Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, ‘Death and the Maiden’, must also be counted among his greatest achievements. Its title again indicates the composer’s use of a self-quotation from one of his own songs, written to the words of Matthias Claudius. This emotionally intense chamber work will be heard here in an arrangement by Gustav Mahler.