Simply Quartet

The Quatuor Diotima has been forced to cancel due to illness, and is replaced at very short notice by the Simply Quartet. Also, the program is entirely new.

The award-winning Simply Quartet was founded in Shanghai in 2008 but is primarily active in Europe. The quartet has performed at prestigious venues such as the Musikverein in Vienna, Wigmore Hall in London, and at numerous festivals. Simply Quartet made their debut at Konserthuset Stockholm in 2022 as one of the selected Rising Stars of the season.

The concert opens with music by the ”father of the string quartet”, Joseph Haydn. It was Haydn who developed the art of the string quartet and became the model for generations of composers, including contemporaries such as Mozart. Here we hear one of his very last quartets, from 1799. It was the first in an intended collection of six quartets that was never completed.

Robert Schumann preferred to focus on one genre at a time. 1842 was a year dedicated to chamber music, and during the summer he wrote three string quartets, among which we hear the first in A minor. He had prepared well and studied the masters, from Haydn to the late Beethoven, and it shows. However, the finale breathes folk music and rural settings.

Between Haydn and Schumann, we hear music by Anton Webern. The concentrated quartet by the "modernist" Webern serves as a bridge between the romantic and the modern. It is more austere and stripped-down, yet still rooted in tradition and rich in expression.