Camerata Nordica collaborate with Roland Pöntinen in February 2025 to tour Danny Elfman’s Piano Quartet (2017) across Sweden, giving the work’s national premiere over the course of their seven dates. The tour begins at the Kalmar Slott on 12 February and concludes at Grand Malmö on 18 February – full details here.
The 21-minute piece was commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic Piano Quartet who premiered the work during their 2018 US tour, and subsequently recorded it on Sony Classical. It is cast in five movements: Ein Ding; Kinderspott; Duett für Vier; Ruhig; Die Wolfsjungen. He says of the piece:
Having only recently finished the violin concerto, I was much more relaxed with diving into what was, for me, more uncharted territory. The idea of writing a string quartet was intimidating, as I’m so infatuated by the string quartets of Shostakovich – but the presence of a piano gave me a bit more confidence, and I loved the freedom that the genre provides. For some strange reason, my first thematic thought going into it was doing variations on the familiar children’s schoolyard taunt: “Nya, nya, nya, nya nya…” I had no idea why, but wasn't aware of anyone doing that before…You can hear it in the second movement of the quartet, “Kinderspott”.
Watch Elfman discuss his Piano Quartet here. Writing in Gramophone, Edward Seckerson praised the “restless nature” of the piece: “it sometimes feels like a latter-day kind of Kinderszenen, with the sinister games of the second movement typifying the child in Elfman.”
The New Year has also seen two outings for Elfman’s Percussion Concerto from Vivi Vassileva. On 1 January she gave the Bulgarian premiere of the 31-minute piece with the Sofia Philharmonic conducted by Emil Tabakov at the National Palace of Culture; on 22 February she presents it with the Nürnberger Symphoniker and Johannes Fritzsch at the Meistersingerhalle. The world premiere recording of the piece from Colin Currie (for whom it was written), JoAnn Falletta and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra was released in 2024, as part of an all-Elfman orchestral portrait on Sony Classical, that also included his orchestral suite, Wunderkammer and short choral work, Are You Lost?