Summer: 6 June, 2021

This first concert is a study in miniatures; these string quartets, by Viennese master Franz Joseph Haydn (father of the string quartet) and the British modernist Frank Bridge, depict a kaleidoscopic set of small musical scenes and characters. The Haydn highlights innovations in musical form (at the time), with the sublime Largo movement giving this work its moniker, the “Friedhofsquartett,” for its funerary use as a hymn of comfort. The Bridge is an explicit vignette of wistful colors, motifs, and impressionism: an homage to Debussy and other continental masters of the early-20th century.

Program

F.J. Haydn:

String Quartet No. 64 in D Major, Op. 76/5, “Friedhofsquartett - Graveyard Quartet” (1797)

I. Allegretto

II. Largo. Cantabile e mesto

III. Menuetto. Allegro

IV. Finale. Presto

F. Bridge:

Novelletten for String Quartet, H. 44 (1904)

I. Andante moderato

II. Presto. Allegretto

III. Allegro Vivo

Musicians

Violin

Matthew Dunn-Vera

Paola Caballero

Viola

Samuel Kelder

Cello

Nicolas Sterner