Ensemble variazione

The history of the ensemble variazione, consisting of members of the Staatskapelle Berlin, reaches all the way back to the 1980s, when a group with continuously changing instrumentation dedicated to the most challenging works of the chamber music literature was formed under the name »New Chamber Music Reunification Berlin«.  

 
Tailored around the demands of the repertoire, the core group made up of string quartet members and solo brass was supplemented with other musicians as the need arose. The consciously open, varying instrumentation of the ensemble, covering nearly all possible combinations of strings, brass and piano, made it possible to rehearse and perform a large portion of the chamber music literature.  
 
The ensemble variazione typically gives one chamber concert per season in the Apollo Hall of the Staatsoper in which musicians present not only pre-Classical and Classical works but also works of the Romantic and contemporary periods.