We are delighted to welcome back Diotima Quartet, bringing four modern masterpieces by Janácek and Ligeti.

The Diotima Quartet is one of the most in-demand chamber ensembles in the world. Formed by graduates of the Paris national conservatory, the quartet has worked in close collaboration with the greatest composers of our age and brought the UK premiere of Thomas Ades’s Clarinet Quintet to Kings Place in 2021.

The Diotima has made award-winning recordings of works by Bartok, Boulez, Janacek and, in this, his centenary year, Ligeti. In this programme they bring together the electrifying mastery of Janacek’s famous quartets, inspired by his love for Kamila Stosslova, with those of Ligeti.  Metamorphosis nocturnes, Ligeti’s first quartet, reaches back to folk-inspired elements in a work of teeming nocturnal enchantment, while the second quartet of 1968 combines thrilling rhythmic energy with expansive sonic landscapes of great beauty, creating in Diotima’s own words, ‘an alphabet for the future’.

‘the Quatuor Diotima meet the challenges [of Ligeti’s quartets] with more accuracy and brilliance than any I’ve heard before. Every detail of the string writing, all informed by Ligeti’s phenomenal aural imagination, is crystal clear, the shape of each movement utterly lucid.’ The Guardian 

This event will last approximately 1 hour 40 minutes, including an interval.