Recital,
Seine-et-Marne, France
Location:
Rudolf Steiner House,
35 Park Road, London NW1 6XT
For tickets (including a glass of wine):
Program:
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Quartettsatz in C-moll, D 703
KAROL SZYMANOWSKI (1882-1927)
String Quartet No. 1 in C major, Op. 37
interval
NOAM FAINGOLD
"Sunrise" for string quartet
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY (1809-1847)
String Quartet in A minor Op. 13
KALLISTO QUARTET
Michal Cwizewicz
Agata Daraskaite
Miguel Angel Rodriguez Olivera
Benjamin Havas
Beginning with the famously haunting C-minor Quartettsatz by Schubert, its dramatic opening moving on to a beautifully gentle theme which lilts through unusual keys. Composed the same year as many of Schubert's abandoned works, this single-movement "unfinished"-quartet is an important forerunner of the composer's late quartets.
Turning to the rich and soaring lyricism of Szymanowski's First String Quartet (1917) we will hear the "pure" string quartet form moulded through impressionistic colours but warped by the tragic events surrounding its conception - the destruction of his family estate at the hands of the Bolsheviks.
"Sunrise by Faingold for string quartet was premiered at New York University in spring of 2008, and performed again at the Bowdoin International Music Festival’s Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music, in July 2009, as one of the winners of the student composition competition. It has since been performed again in New York City at Roulette Gallery at the premiere concert by the DETOUR composer’s collective in 2010 and by the PUBLIQuartet at concert of the College Music Journal’s festival in October 2011. In 2012 the Jönköping Sinfonietta (Sweden) premiered the composer’s arrangment for string orchestra. "
Completing this recital will be one of the titans of the genre, Mendelssohn's String Quartet in A-minor Op.13. Written by the teenage composer just months after Beethoven's death, this is an impassioned and majestic ode to his great predecessor. The inspiration of Beethoven's late quartets is ever-present and, throughout we hear Mendelssohn's song Ist es wahr?, asking "can it be true?"