Part of the series «Chamber Music Compact» – Chiaroscuro Quartet plays 7 concerts in 3 days.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Selection of Contrapuncti and Canons from the «Art of the Fugue» BWV 1080
Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet B flat major op. 130
Ludwig van Beethoven: «Grosse Fuge» B flat major op. 133
Duration approx. 70 minutes
In this concert, the Chiaroscuro Quartet plays Beethoven's Quartet in B flat major with both the new rondo finale and the «Grosse Fuge», which was the original final movement before Beethoven wrote a more accessible final movement at the publisher's request. To match this, the concert opens with excerpts from Bach's «Art of Fugue».
In this 6-movement work, there are two slow movements and two dance movements. However, the slow movements in particular undermine the song-like character each in their own way - in the 3rd movement («Andante con moto, ma non troppo») through the scherzo-like character, in the 5th movement («Cavantina. Adagio molto espressivo») through the middle section, in which the 1st violin plays the hesitant melody according to the instruction «oppressive» («beklemmt»).
The consistently contrapuntal Allegro (1st movement) already hints at the work's monumental final fugue, the «Grosse Fuge», which introduces the theme in four variations and then develops them in reverse order as fugue themes. The intense, rapid sections in particular are so thematically dense that it is not surprising that the first reviewer in 1826 wrote: «But the reviewer does not dare to interpret the meaning of the fugal finale: For him it was incomprehensible, like Chinese.»
Chiaroscuro Quartet:
Alina Ibragimova, violin
Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux, violin
Emilie Hörnlund, viola
Claire Thirion, violoncello
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