Brentano String Quartet to play in Santa Fe
The Brentano String Quartet will perform the music of Haydn and Beethoven in Santa Fe’s St. Francis Auditorium on Sunday. The musicians will play Haydn’s String Quartet, Op. 20, one of the works that earned the composer the sobriquet “the father of the string quartet.” Haydn developed compositional techniques that were to define the medium for the next 200 years.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet, Op. 59, No. 1 will follow. Known as one of the “Razumovskys,” the piece was commissioned in 1806 by the Russian ambassador in Vienna, Count Andreas Razumovsky.
The group also will play a new work by the award-winning American composer Stephen Hartke.. Hartke is best-known as the composer of
“Meanwhile — Incidental Music to Imaginary Puppet Plays,” winner of the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2013.
The quartet-in-residence at both Princeton and Yale universities, the group was named for Antonie Brentano, whom many scholars consider to be Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved,” the intended recipient of his famous love confession.
Within a few years of its formation at the Juilliard School in New York, the quartet garnered the first Cleveland Quartet Award and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award; and in 1996, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center invited the members of the quartet to be the inaugural members of Chamber Music Society Two, a program that was to become a coveted distinction for chamber groups and individuals.
The quartet has been privileged to collaborate with such artists as soprano Jessye Norman, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, pianist Richard Goode and pianist Mitsuko Uchida.
Its appearance comes as part of Santa Fe Pro Musica’s 35th anniversary celebration season.