Performers
Hagen Quartet
- Lukas Hagen, Violin
- Rainer Schmidt, Violin
- Veronika Hagen, Viola
- Clemens Hagen, Cello
Program
HAYDN String Quartet in C Major, Op. 76, No. 3, "Emperor"
BARTÓK String Quartet No. 2
BEETHOVEN String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.At a Glance
HAYDN String Quartet in C Major, Op. 76, No. 3, “Emperor”
Dating from the mid-to-late 1790s, Haydn’s six Op. 76 quartets were among his last contributions to the genre that he did so much to create. The luminous slow movement of the C-Major Quartet is based on the “Emperor’s Hymn” that he composed in 1797 as a heartfelt act of fealty toward Francis II and the Austrian state.
BARTÓK String Quartet No. 2, Op. 17
Like Beethoven, Bartók used the string quartet as a vehicle for expressing his deepest musical thoughts. The six quartets he composed at intervals between 1908 and 1939 are a microcosm of the Hungarian composer’s richly imaginative and highly distinctive sound world. The three movements of the Second Quartet form a kind of triptych whose center panel is an energetic Allegro characterized by constantly shifting dancelike meters.
BEETHOVEN String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132
Beethoven’s Op. 132, the second of three quartets commissioned by the Russian prince Nikolai Golitsin, centers on its transcendently beautiful slow movement, a deeply felt “song of thanksgiving” for the composer’s recovery from illness. Like many of Beethoven’s late-period works, the A-Minor Quartet expresses spiritual struggle through extreme contrasts of mood.