Go Big or Go Home! Well, in this case, we’ll do both, going big, then going home. Festival Series IV marks the conclusion of the Sixth Annual Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival, and we are going out with a bang.

This program will shake the rafters of the Gesa Power House Theater, and ring on in your memory long after the WWCMF musicians leave the stage. The Concerto for violin, piano and string quartet in D, by French composer Ernest Chausson, is a masterpiece of the late ninteenth Century, demanding virtuosity from all six players. The concerto, as seen through the lens of the ninteenth Century, usually means a piece for soloist and large orchestra. Chausson, however, looks inward, pairing down the ensemble to its essentials. With pre-impressionistic shadings dominating the interior passages, this work nevertheless explodes to a joyous conclusion. As the French musical indication goes, “Laissé Vibrer!”— Let it Ring!

Tchaikovsky, for his part, gives us one of the string repertoire’s great showpieces. Souvenir de Florence is so named because Tchaikovsky composed one of the work’s principal themes while on an extended stay in Florence, Italy, where he composed his opera The Queen of Spades. This work features two violins, two violas, and two cellos. At times, the piece is made of three duos, or a pair of trios, or a soloist with an accompanying quintet, or once in a great while, an expectant silence from all six. The 2013 Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival will conclude in rapturous melody, giving you a souvenir of your own.

Ernest Chausson (1855-1899)

Concert en ré majeur pour violon, piano, et quatuor à cordes, Op. 21

I. Décidé

II. Sicilienne

III. Grave

IV. Très animé

Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Souvenir de Florence, for string sextet in D, Op. 70

I. Allegro con spirito

II. Adagio cantabile e con moto

III. Alegretto Moderato

IV. Allegro vivace

Artists: Winston Choi, Timothy Christie, Julia Gish-Salerno, Norbert Lewandowski, Christina McGann,Stephen Miahky, Philip Payton, Maria Sampen, Meta Weiss and MingHuan Xu