Apollon Musagète Quartet
Performers
Apollon Musagète Quartet
- Paweł Zalejski, Violin
- Bartosz Zachłod, Violin
- Piotr Szumieł, Viola
- Piotr Skweres, Cello
Program
SCHUBERT "Quartettsatz" in C Minor, D. 703
DVOŘÁK String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat Major, Op. 51
SCHUBERT String Quartet in E-flat Major, D. 87
SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No. 8
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.Salon Encores
Join us for a free drink at a post-concert reception in Weill Recital Hall’s Jacobs Room.
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At a Glance
SCHUBERT “Quartettsatz” in C Minor, D. 703
This short but intensely expressive fast movement is all that remains of a string quartet that the 23-year-old Schubert left unfinished in 1820. Posthumously published 50 years later, the orphaned “Quartet Movement” looks ahead to the three great quartets of the composer’s maturity.
DVOŘÁK String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat Major, Op. 51
One of Dvořák’s most beloved chamber works, the E-flat–Major String Quartet exemplifies the imaginative evocations of the dumka and other Slavonic folk music that defined his early “nationalist” style. With its generous fund of melodies, exotic harmonies, and robust, multilayered rhythms, the quartet has been a surefire crowd-pleaser ever since it helped establish the Czech composer’s international reputation in the late 1870s.
SCHUBERT String Quartet in E-flat Major, D. 87
Schubert completed a total of 15 string quartets, the first when he was barely 13 years old and the last some two years before his untimely death. The winsome Quartet in E-flat Major—written in 1813 but not published until 1840, long after Schubert’s death—is the work of a precocious 16-year-old already fluent in the idiom of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven and poised to leap into new territory.
SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 110
Perhaps more than any composer since Beethoven, Shostakovich used the string quartet as a vehicle for his deepest ruminations on the human condition. Among the 15 quartets that he produced between 1935 and 1974, Op. 110 stands out for its bleakly existential introspection. Although Shostakovich dedicated the 1960 work “to the victims of fascism and war,” the pervasive use of his four-note musical signature and the embedded allusions to his earlier works indicate additional, more personal layers of meaning.