In Your Neighbourhood: Autumn Strings

Featuring Associate Concertmaster Liu-Yi Retallick

Niels Gade: String Octet in F Major
Mendelssohn: Octet in E-flat

Celebrate the season of fleeting daylight and golden leaves with an intimate concert of impassioned music for strings. Associate Concertmaster Liu-Yi Retallick leads a group of APO musicians through a perfect pairing of octets by Mendelssohn and Niels Gade for this In Your Neighbourhood concert.

Written in the autumn of 1825, Mendelssohn’s Octet was a birthday gift to his friend and violin teacher Eduard Rietz. The young composer was only 16 at the time, surprisingly, given the piece’s artistic maturity and timelessness.

Not long after Mendelssohn passed away, in 1849, Niels Gade composed his String Octet as a tribute to his long-time friend and mentor. Stylistically, you can hear his influence in the piece right from its opening notes.