21 March 2027 @ 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm
£25.00
Artists: Barbican Quartet (string quartet) – Amarins Wierdsma (Violin), Kate Maloney (Violin), Christoph Slenczka (Viola) and Yoanna Prodanova (Cello)
Concert Sponsor:Â Ruth & Peter Lowe
Programme
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – String Quartet in D major, K 575
- Alexander Zemlinsky – String Quartet No. 2, Op. 15
- Interval
- Ludwig van Beethoven – String Quartet in C major, Op. 59 No. 3, “Razumovsky”
About the Concert
On Sunday 21 March, the prizewinning Barbican Quartet make their eagerly anticipated return to nadsa. Winners of First Prize at the 2022 ARD International Music Competition in Munich, this is a quartet renowned for its distinctive sound and deeply personal interpretations. Their programme spans more than a century. It opens with the elegance of Mozart’s late “Prussian” quartet, continues with the searching intensity of Zemlinsky and finishes with one of Beethoven’s boldest and most exhilarating works, the third of the Razumovsky quartets.
A Journey Across the String Quartet
The afternoon opens with Mozart’s String Quartet in D major, K 575, composed in 1789 and the first of the three “Prussian” quartets, among the last he completed. Written with the cello-playing King of Prussia in mind, it gives the cello unusual prominence and shares its graceful, song-like material democratically among all four players. There follows Zemlinsky’s String Quartet No. 2, a large and harmonically adventurous work of 1913 to 1915, cast as a single continuous span. Bound up with the personal crises surrounding his circle, including his brother-in-law Arnold Schoenberg, it is music of extraordinary emotional pressure and ambition.
After the interval comes Beethoven’s String Quartet in C major, Op. 59 No. 3, the last of the three quartets composed in 1806 for the Russian ambassador Count Razumovsky, and a landmark of his middle period. From its mysterious, harmonically veiled introduction it bursts into brilliant life, culminating in a headlong fugal finale of near-perpetual motion that drives the music to a thrilling close.
About the Ensemble
The Barbican Quartet is a distinctive presence on the international chamber-music scene, renowned for its unique sound and deeply personal interpretations of repertoire spanning four centuries. Formed in 2014 at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, the quartet won First Prize and several special awards at the 2022 ARD International Music Competition in Munich. Previous successes include prizes at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition in 2022 and the Joseph Joachim International Chamber Music Competition in 2019. Their debut album, Manifesto on Love, was released in 2024.
Why You Shouldn’t Miss This
This is chamber music of the highest order performed by one of the most exciting and internationally acclaimed young quartets. From Mozart’s poise to Beethoven’s daring, by way of Zemlinsky’s heady late-Romantic world, it is a programme that rewards the connoisseur and newcomer alike.