The highly acclaimed Barbican quartet were first prize winners at the 2019 Joseph Joachim Competition. The young quartet stands out with powerful performances and immense range of musical expression.

Each concert is a journey: tonight’s begins with Haydn’s last completed string quartet, followed by the second quartet of Bartok and finishing with the celebrated second Razumovsky quartet by Beethoven – a tremendous tour de force juxtaposing struggle and hope. The increased use of Romantic gestures and ideas in this piece are already opening the door to a new world.

In Bartok’s second string quartet, collisions are felt: major and minor, the two chromatic scales, two pairs of instruments. Here, hope dies with the final bells. The dichotomies of Bartok and Beethoven are interrupted by a movement from Kurtag’s Officium breve which offers a moment of stillness and introspection in a programme of great intensity.

This is a Kirckman Concert Society promotion. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx7NNzk45Ks