Joseph Haydn
String Quartet No. 43 in D minor Hob. III:43 (1785)
Anton Webern
Slow movement for string quartet (1905)
Five movements for string quartet op. 5 (1909)
György Ligeti
String Quartet No 2 (1968)
Ludwig van Beethoven
String Quartet No. 15 in A minor op. 132 (1825), 3. Movement
- Dylan Naylor Violin
- Valentin Ungureanu Violin
- Vincent Royer Viola
- Daniel Raabe Violoncello
Introduction 30 minutes before the concert with Norbert Hornig
No genre is as rich in tradition and at the same time experiences so much innovation as the string quartet. With its balanced sound, this unique formation of four equally important string instruments has survived 270 years of different periods and styles. Indeed, it more than survived, it thrived! Many composers found this the ideal instrumentation to condensate their own ideas and their personal language. Carl Maria von Weber, albeit not having written a string quartet of his own, described it as »musical consommé«, a bouillon of sound. The results of the century-long »thickening process« can be heard in this concert: In his remarkably short D Minor Quartet, Joseph Haydn demonstrates his refined quartet skills in a nutshell while at the same time saluting his brilliant student Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Anton Webern carefully weighs every one of his notes, György Ligeti follows the individual fibres of music all the way into microtonality, and Beethoven even centres his work around a »Holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity«.
