Artemis Quartet

American composer Samuel Barber’s most famous and beloved piece is Adagio. We often hear it in a version for string orchestra, but here we will experience the original: the slow movement from his string quartet from the mid-1930s. This music was played in an arrangement for strings at the funerals of Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Albert Einstein. However, Barber never considered this to be funereal music, but rather as a melodic and meditative adagio. His inspiration came from a poem by the Roman poet Virgil.

There is an inexhaustible fascination with secret messages in music.  The introductory theme of Johannes Brahms’ warmly expressive second string quartet comprises the notes A-F-A-E, which have been interpreted as a greeting and comment on friend and violinist Joseph Joachim’s personal motto: Frei aber einsam, Free, but lonely.

The German Artemis Quartet will also perform Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No. 2 at this concert, composed in honour of the 250-year anniversary of countryman Henry Purcell.