ConcertPulse
Chamber concert: String quintet
Attention: Change of programme and line-up
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Attention: Change of programme and line-up
"There is no higher purpose of art than to kindle in man that desire which frees his entire being from earthly torment and elevates him to such heights that, raising his head proudly and joyfully, he is able to behold the divine, indeed comes into contact with it." This statement was made by a well-known literary character – the talking dog Berganza, whom E.T.A. Hoffmann engaged in an intense conversation one night in a Bamberg park over 200 years ago. In the spirit of Goethe’s well-known description of the string quartet as “four sensible people talking with one another”, the “four sensible people” of our Berganza Quartet, which emerged from our orchestra’s ranks, have now been engaged in a musical conversation for 20 years, their line-up unchanged. The ensemble will kick off this concert with some entertainingly ironic pieces by Britten that were first performed in 1936. These Divertimenti were inspired by youthful pastimes: the march represents sports, the waltz depicts a party, and the burlesque is all about mischief in general. Shostakovich, who often suffered under his country’s changing politics, composed his Fourth String Quartet in 1949 but held it back until after Stalin's death – for while it certainly contains sensual, elegiac passages, there are also plenty of the idiosyncratic, grotesque moments so typical of this composer. In 1824, Schubert wrote despairingly to his brother that he had had "the fatal recognition that reality is miserable, although I am trying to beautify it as much as possible by means of my imagination (thank God)." This crisis resulted in a rush of creativity, in which Schubert produced works such as the forlornly melancholy A minor quartet. This quartet is captivating despite its bleakness, quoting the lyrical "Rosamunde" theme from Schubert's own incidental music, and containing echoes of his setting of Schiller's poem "The Gods of Greece”, which contains the line: "Beautiful world, where art thou?"