flimsfestival: Barbican Quartett

Four international musicians, four unique personalities, a string quartet: The Barbican Quartet embodies an original voice of the chamber music scene, which inspires the audience with its intimate, powerful performances and virtuoso interplay. The four musicians bring their individual strengths to playing together in order to unite and convey the well-known and important string quartet repertoire, but also contemporary music. The English string quartet has not only won the 71st ARD Competition, but many other prizes also honour the performance of the young musicians, their homogeneous sound, the brilliance of each individual, their enthusiasm and quality. The ensemble makes guest appearances at international festivals – and at Flimsfestival! We hear them with a classical program that juxtaposes the keys of D minor and D major and unites three great string quartet composers.

Haydn at the beginning: after the publication of his string quartets op. 20 could be read in the "Historisch-biographischen Lexicon der Tonkünstler": "From this number on, Haydn appears in all his greatness as a quartet composer". Mozart also sought fame and honour with the composition of his "Prussian Quartets": he wrote them for the cello-playing monarch Friedrich Wilhelm II, but without his express commission. The so-called "Prussian Quartets" are therefore far less Prussian than it seems. The only recognizable trace that the Prussian king left behind in the pieces is the prominent position of the violoncello. At the end of the programme, Schubert's most famous string quartet "Death and the Maiden", an eight-thousander of quartet literature, in which the four musicians will shine...