 • Schnittke was a great admirer of Mahler. In 1988, he based his own Piano Quartet on Mahler's chamber music sketches. Schnittke dedicated the Quartet to the Ukrainian violinist Oleh (Oleg) Krysa, one of the musicians who had premiered his Trio. Schnittke's String Trio was commissioned by the Alban Berg Society of Vienna to commemorate the centenary of the Austrian composer's birth in 1985. His quintet can be thought of as a kind of heir to the one Shostakovich had composed in 1940. Its five movements create a sort of instrumental Requiem dominated by a cyclical theme of five notes and by the imitation of Russian church bells. • Internationally acclaimed by the public and the critics since its foundation in 1997, the Molinari Quartet has established a mandate to perform works from the 20th and 21st centuries, repertoire for string quartet, and to commission new works. Recipients of 14 Opus Prizes awarded by the Quebec Music Council, the Molinari Quartet is described by the critics as “Canada's answer to the Kronos or Arditti Quartet.”
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