Eybler Quartet pack their strings for Niagara
It’s a 50-year window of music getting re-strung in style.
When the Eybler Quartet of Toronto returns to Niagara April 29, they’ll focus on the birth of the string quartet — music written between 1775 to 1825. It’ll involve a little Mozart, a little Beethoven and their lesser known peer Franz Asplmayr.
Cellist Margaret Gay says Asplmayr wrote “very charming whimsical music,” contrasted with the visionary work by Mozart and Beethoven with which listeners will be more familiar.
The program will consist of Asplmayr’s String Quartet Op. 2, Mozart’s String Quartet K464 in A Major and Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 130.
Gay says the “intense” Beethoven piece was one of the last compositions before his death.
“The Beethoven Quartet we’re playing, Op. 130, contains the very famous Cavatina, music many will recognize as it’s used in many movie scores,” she says.
Presented by the Gallery Players of Niagara, the show takes place at Silver Spire United Church in downtown St. Catharines.
Formed in 2004, the Eybler Quartet aims to explore the first 150 years of the string quartet, with a focus on lesser-known composers like their namesake, Joseph Leopold Edler von Eybler.
The group consists of Gay (also the artistic director of Gallery Players), Aisslinn Nosky, Julia Wedman and Patrick Jordan.
The group is earning glowing reviews for its latest album, which tackles Beethoven’s Op. 18 string quartets in a different fashion. “We decided we would only do it if we could agree to use Beethoven’s metronome markings,” says Gay. “Most people completely ignore his markings because they’re almost impossible to play. His tempos are extreme, both fast and impossibly slow.”