Ludwig van Beethoven:
Violin Sonata No. 9 in A, Op. 47, ‘Kreutzer Concerto’ (arr. Colin Jacobsen)

Colin Jacobsen:
Kreutzings

Anna Clyne:
Shorthand

Leos Janacek:
String Quartet No. 1, JW. 7/8, ‘Z podnštnu Tolstého Kreutzerovy sonáty’, ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ (arr. Eric Jacobsen, orch. Michael P. Atkinson)

The Knights, the bold Brooklyn-based orchestral collective, embody the spirit of exploration with The Kreutzer Project, a programme that posits Tolstoy’s response to Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata:

What exactly is it? I don’t understand. What is music?

What does it do?

And why does it do what it does?

Beethoven and Tolstoy in turn inspired Czech composer Leoš Janáček, whose first string quartet is also called “Kreutzer Sonata”. The Knights’ response to these iconoclastic touchstones is to reimagine the Beethoven as “Kreutzer Concerto”, arranged by The Knights’ co-founder Colin Jacobsen who is also the orchestrated version’s violin soloist; and the Janáček as orchestrated by The Knights’ co-founder and conductor Eric Jacobsen. They keep the canon going with Colin’s newly composed “Kreutzings”, which makes buried allusions to both Beethoven and Janáček; and a commission from Anna Clyne, whose piece “Shorthand” takes its title from a line in Tolstoy’s novella: “music is the shorthand of emotion”.

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Recorded: 8–10 February 2020, University of Wisconsin–Madison; 21–23 July 2020, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, Katonah, New York.