Chamber music continues to play a vital role in our musical communities today. As the world continues to recover from the periods of lockdown in recent years, chamber music has been quick to get back on its feet. Few experiences can replace the comforting nature of sharing music in intimate spaces. Chamber music has been inviting audiences back into communal spaces little by little, one restriction less at a time. Luckily, many great composers have contributed works of immense value to the chamber music genre over time. Some of the most lasting and evergreen music comes from the nineteenth century, which is when chamber music transformed into an art form of its own standing. Performing music from this period in the modern day brings us closer to the source, invoking the spirit of discovery that birthed innovations and the discovery of new dimensions. Through the seemingly simple act of bringing a small group of musicians together, a moment of grand scope can be created. The intimate chamber ensemble is capable of projecting artistic ambitions of cosmic proportions.

Both Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, dedicated to his wife Clara, and Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 59 no. 2, dedicated to Count Razumovsky, embody the power and potential of chamber music. The Piano Quintet was a groundbreaking piece, adding a new combination of instruments to the chamber music repertoire, and the Razumovsky quartets contain some of Beethoven’s finest and most inventive writing from his middle period.

This pairing of Beethoven’s second Razumovsky quartet and Schumann’s perennial Piano Quintet marks the eleventh concert of “Om and Friends,” a Bangkok-based chamber music series founded in 2018 by Thai violinist, violist, and educator Omporn Kowintha. With this series, Omporn and her friends aim to create more performance opportunities for classical musicians in Thailand, inspire the next generation of musicians and audiences, and broaden the local audience’s exposure to live performances of classical music.