MARJORIE HAYWARD (violin)
G. O'CONNOR MORRIS (pianoforte)
THE STRATTON STRING QUARTET: George Stratton (violin) ; Carl Taylor (violin) ; Watson Forbes (viola),
John Moore (violoncello)
One of the greatest tragedies in the history of French music was the death of Ernest Chausson (1855-1899) through a bicycle accident at his home at Limay, Seine-et-Oise. Like many other musicians, he began his career as a lawyer, but at the age of twenty-five he gave up law for music. His first move was to enter Massenet's composition class at the Paris Conservatoire, and he also studied with Cesar Franck for three years. From Massenet he learnt to write with the utmost purity of texture and from Cesar Franck he derived his richness of harmonic colour and deep 'romantic feeling.
These qualities are essentially characteristic of Chausson's Concerto in D for piano, violin, and string quartet, which is not a concerto in the real sense of the word, but more a piece of chamber music for sextet.