Program:
Beethoven - String Quartet no. 14, on. 131
Shostakovich - String Quartet No. 15, on. 144
Experience the Brodsky Quartet in the Edesche Concert Hall
The Brodsky Quartet has been a prominent player in the world of string quartet for decades. But after the successful performance at Prinsengracht 2017, many a music lover in the Netherlands has taken this famous string quartet to heart. About what the secret behind this success is, viola player Paul Cassidy says: "We have never confined ourselves to one thing. We are at home in classical music, but also like to work with musicians from the world of pop and jazz"
(Read the interview with viola player Paul Cassidy.)
The Brodsky Quartet has been a prominent player in the world of string quartet for decades. But after the successful performance at Prinsengracht 2017, many a music lover in the Netherlands has taken this famous string quartet to heart. About what the secret behind this success is, viola player Paul Cassidy says: "We have never confined ourselves to one thing. We are at home in classical music, but also like to work with musicians from the world of pop and jazz"
(Read the interview with viola player Paul Cassidy.)
Beethoven at its best
"What can you compose next?" Schubert sighed when he heard Beethoven's 'Fourteenth String Quartet'. This string quartet still makes a deep impression. What is special is that Beethoven has expanded the usually four-part string quartet here into a seven-part masterpiece in such a way that these parts flow into one another. As a result, this string quartet resembles a forty-minute improvisation, as if the music were created on the spot. Let Beethoven's unbridled imagination carry you away by what he himself called his most successful string quartet. Beethoven at its best!
Shostakovich's last
In his last string quartet Shostakovich looks back one more time. Although the composer wrote most of the piece in the hospital, he had not yet lost his sense of morbid humour. So Shostakovich instructed the Beethoven Quartet to play the first part 'Elegy' in such a way "that the flies would fall dead from the sky, and the audience would leave the hall out of boredom". Nothing could be further from the truth. Consisting of six slow movements, this is undoubtedly Shostakovich's most moving and intimate string quartet of the fifteen he composed
Soundbite Like many of Shostakovich's earlier string quartets, his last quartet ends in silence. "Sometimes such a hushed end is peaceful and resigned," says second violinist Ian Belton. "But often it's as if the music is still going on in your head. The music doesn't end, it's just not audible anymore."
This concert will be broadcasted live by the NTR on Radio 4.
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