The Korea National Symphony Orchestra will present Chamber Music Series II: Romantics Born of Hardship at the IBK Chamber Hall in the Seoul Arts Center on Sept. 18 at 7:30 p.m. The program pairs Weber’s Piano Quartet in B-flat major with Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 6 in F minor and Fantasia in F-sharp minor, Op. 28. The concert marks the 200th anniversary of Weber’s death and highlights both composers’ creative resilience through hardship.
Pianist Andrey Gugnin / Courtesy of Korean National Symphony Orchestra
In 1806, Carl Maria von Weber accidentally drank nitric acid used for engraving, mistaking it for wine. The near-fatal mishap left his vocal cords damaged for life. A year later, entangled in his father’s catastrophic debts, he was arrested for embezzlement and banished from Württemberg. Yet, out of this chaotic crucible in his early 20s, the German composer forged his Piano Quartet in B-flat major — a daring work that helped lay the groundwork for early Romanticism.
Nearly four decades later, Felix Mendelssohn found himself consumed by a different kind of anguish. Plunged into severe depression following the sudden stroke and death of his sister and musical confidante, Fanny, Mendelssohn struggled to regain his footing. Writing to his sister Rebecka while recovering in Switzerland in 1847, he confessed his desperate attempt to force himself back into his craft: "I am trying to be industrious, in the hope that I may once more find some interest and pleasure in work."
