The Animato Kwartet plays Haydn and Mendelssohn
Haydn is often considered as the ‘father of the quartet’. With his early fifth quartet Op. 20 the four strings come close to the core of the strength. Haydn was one of the first composers to provide the vocals with their own part and thus enabled a new kind of interaction between the four players. The quartets Op. 20 are sometimes called ‘sun quartets’, yet the fifth quartet in f minor is a notorious work. Theme of the uncanny fugue (part four) is a famous baroque theme, also used by Händel in his Messiah and by Mozart in the Kyrie of his Requiem.
Mendelssohn composed his second string quartet shortly after the death of Beethoven, whose quartets he admired. The audience in Beethoven's time didn’t understand his quartets at all, but Mendelssohn saw the rich complexity in the masterpieces which were a mystery to so many people. Beethoven’s string quartet Op. 135 is titled ‘Muss es sein?’ Mendelssohn refers to this title with his own song whereupon he based his second quartet: ‘Ist es wahr?’. The theme from this song is interwoven with every part of the quartet. Although this piece was written in a minor, it begins and ends with the song theme in a major, thus returning to the question both Mendelssohn and Beethoven posed…
This concert is made possible by Sena Performers, Stichting SEC and Droog Amsterdam.
