Opus13

Wilhelm Stenhammar was truly a towering figure in Swedish musical life around the turn of the 20th century – a gifted pianist, a successful conductor and a strikingly original composer. Combining Nordic melancholy with influences from European late Romanticism, he created music that continues to resonate today. In the fourth of his six string quartets, we encounter both intensity and lyrical beauty, with the second and fourth movements drawing on Swedish folk melodies.

Brahms’s First String Quartet is another cornerstone of the quartet repertoire. It is music of unusual density and weight, where the passionate and powerful outer movements contrast with the lighter, more lyrical atmosphere of the two inner movements.

Djuro Zivkovic is internationally renowned for music in which sound, time and spiritual concentration are central. In his works, sonorities seem to emerge from nothing, linger and evolve almost imperceptibly. He has been active in Sweden since 2000 and is Konserthuset’s Composer-in-Residence. Here, we hear a newly written string quartet, commissioned by Konserthuset Stockholm.

The Norwegian-Swedish Opus13 recently won First Prize at both the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition and the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition, and has quickly established itself on the international music scene. In 2026, the quartet was awarded the prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.