Rossetti Ensemble at Hertfordshire Festival of Music

Mozart’s Piano Quartet is one of the first masterpieces of the form, combining classical elegance with dramatic intensity. There is a delicate arrangement for piano quartet by John Lenehan of Debussy’s Prelude from La damoiselle élue, a lyrical and impressionistic work inspired by Rossetti’s poetry, and this is contrasted by James Francis Brown’s exciting Piano Quartet of 2004.

A collection of short pieces that range from lyrical to lively characterise A Song and Dance Sketchbook and the concert ends with Schumann’s Piano Quartet - a romantic and passionate work that displays Schumann’s melodic genius and harmonic innovation. This is a musical journey that spans centuries and styles!

The theme of this year's Hertfordshire Festival of Music is The Music of Art and The Art of Music. Appropriately, The Rossetti Ensemble is named after the renowned British poet and painter of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Rossetti Ensemble was formed in 2018 with a quest to explore the repertoire of his era and beyond.