Dankgesang

A few days before the 200th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's death, one of his monumental late string quartets takes centre stage at our chamber music concert. It is a work that unsettled his contemporaries and, through its immense scale, heralded a new era in professional chamber music. Composers continue to grapple with this legacy to this very day.

How could it have been any different for the young Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy? His Quartet in A minor would be inconceivable without Beethoven's late musical language; it transforms that legacy in a most felicitous and fresh manner. Two works in A minor come together, offering performers and audience alike a musical mountain hike – with the pure, glistening snowfields of Arvo Pärt's Da pacem Domine serving as a peaceful bridge between them.

7.10 pm
Concert introduction with Tilmann Böttcher