Quatuor Ébène

Hearing live chamber music is incredibly special. Getting to see the musicians exchange glances, hearing them breathe, and the sound of their fingers moving across the instruments creates a powerful and intimate experience of the music. Here, we get to hear it with the French Quatuor Ébène. This programme offers music by three of music history’s most prominent quartet composers: Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert and Béla Bartók. 

When Haydn wrote the six quartets of Opus 20, he had essentially perfected the quartet form, which is one reason why he has been considered the father of the string quartet. The collection is called the Sun Quartets, but the quartet in G-minor is also infused with dark streaks of melancholy, passion and gravity. This description also suits Béla Bartók’s third string quartet. His interest in folk music continuously produced new impulses, while he moved closer to other influences of his era. In particular, the emergence of musical Modernism made a strong impression.  

Schubert’s fifteenth quartet was also his last. And it is as if, in the music, he wanted to describe all of life’s emotions, with dazzlingly beautiful melodies, playfulness, drama and consideration.