Cuarteto Casals’s first Carnegie Hall appearance in more than a decade is an especially highly anticipated event. In this program, the Spanish quartet—praised for its “playing of extreme technical perfection yet with life bursting from every note” (The Times, London)—ruminates on the eternal balance between the individual and collective in a string quartet. By bringing together J. S. Bach’s The Art of Fugue—a profound examination of counterpoint—with Sofia Gubaidulina’s Reflections on the Theme of B-A-C-H, this program ponders the nature of string quartet composition and performance while offering new perspective on listening to Bach. Included in the second half of the program is a staple of the genre by Brahms.