Chamber Music Concert

We are not the only ones today who struggle to remember catalogue numbers and keys. Nineteenth-century listeners to Joseph Haydn’s music also looked for musical associations, and nicknames coined in jest not infrequently became the works’ official subtitles. Such was the case with the String Quartet in G major, Op. 33 No. 5, whose cheerful opening brought to mind the phrase ‘How do you do?’ For this reason, the work is still sometimes referred to as the ‘How Do You Do?’ Quartet.

Alfred Schnittke proposes a completely different kind of musical memory in his String Quartet No. 3. The work draws attention through its numerous references to the music of different periods, a hallmark of the composer’s style. Schnittke draws on the Renaissance Stabat Mater by Orlando di Lasso, Dmitri Shostakovich's musical signature, and songs by Gustav Mahler. This dark collage could hardly do without a reference to one of the greatest innovators of the string quartet, Ludwig van Beethoven, and his Grosse Fuge for string quartet.

It was Beethoven who broke away from the chamber elegance of salon music in favour of monumental, almost symphonic breadth, of which the String Quartet in E minor, Op. 59 No. 2 is an excellent example. An engaging anecdote, though one known only indirectly, is associated with the work's slow movement. According to Carl Czerny, Beethoven found its mood while contemplating the starry sky and thinking about the ‘music of the spheres’.

This programme will be performed by the Bennewitz Quartet, an outstanding Czech ensemble that combines emotional intensity with clarity of sound.

Bartłomiej Gembicki

Programme

• Joseph Haydn — String Quartet in G major, Op. 33 No. 5, Hob. III:41
• Alfred Schnittke — String Quartet No. 3
• ... intermission
• Ludwig van Beethoven — String Quartet in E minor ‘Razumovsky’, Op. 59 No. 2