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In honor of Kaija Saariaho, the leading Finnish composer of the 20th and 21st centuries who died in June 2023, Quatuor Diotima has chosen her Second String Quartet Terra Memoria as the centerpiece of its program. Written in 2006, the work is dedicated “to those departed” and their memory. The four musicians also perform music by Benjamin Britten and Arnold Schoenberg.
Josef Suk’s close bond with his composition teacher Antonín Dvořák was not merely artistic—he was also his older colleague’s son-in-law. The Heath Quartet juxtaposes Dvořák’s String Quartet Op. 51, known as the “Slavonic” due to its many allusions to Czech folk music, with Suk’s meditation on an ancient chorale for Wenceslas, the patron saint of Bohemia. Written on the eve of World War I, the composition is a plea for peace and protection as well as an expression of new found Czech patriotism. Works by Benjamin Britten and Joseph Haydn complete the program.