Special chamber concert

Programme

Joseph Haydn
String Quartet No. 63 in B Flat Major "Sunrise"

Anton Webern
Six Bagatelles, op. 9

Anton Webern
Langsamer Satz for String Quartet

Robert Schumann
Piano Quintet in E Flat Major, op. 4

Karin Löffler-Hunziker, Violin

Valérie Gillard, Violin

Anja Kreynacke, Viola

Jan Mischlich-Andresen, Cello

Lukas Maria Kuen, Piano

ABOUT THE PROGRAMME

The violin theme in the first movement of Haydn’s B flat major String Quartet, op. 76/4, spirals into the heights above a sustained chord from the other instruments. Listeners felt they were listening to the rising of the sun, which is why the work has been given the nickname “Sunrise” Quartet. Here Haydn’s music, in its evocative idiom, takes on almost pre-romantic traits. Anton Webern’s Langsamer Satz (slow movement) for string quartet stands on the programme as a sort of belated echo of romanticism. Things are quite different with his Six Bagatelles, tight-knit miniatures that dispense with everything nonessential, using only a few notes to hint at things the listeners can project in their own minds. Lastly, Schumann’s Piano Quintet is not only one of his most famous works altogether, but the piece that founded the very genre of the piano quintet – “a work abounding in strength and freshness”, as Clara Schumann so rapturously put it.