Downright scary-good

KUSC Blog

The Goldmund Quartet has garnered a reputation as one of the leading string quartets of the great classical and modern works of the quartet canon, delivering performances of ‘exquisite playing’ (Süddeutsche Zeitung). The program the ensemble is bringing to Duke Arts spans more than 160 years, beginning with the most recent: Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 7. He composed the piece in 1960, dedicated to the memory of his first wife in the year that would have been her 50th birthday. Haydn’s Quartet No. 2 in F-Major, meanwhile, was written right at the end of the 18th century. It was his final quartet and is the pinnacle of his writing for the medium, showing his quartet writing at its very best. While Haydn wrote nearly 70 string quartets in his career, our next composer wrote just three, one of which has been lost, while another was never completed. The Goldmund Quartet will perform Grieg’s remaining quartet, a work praised by Franz Liszt for its ‘soaring flight and resonance for the instruments for which it is written.’

Program

Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 7 in F-Sharp minor Op. 108 (‘The Lark’)
Haydn: String Quartet No. 2 in F-Major Op. 77
Grieg: String Quartet No. 1 in G-Minor Op. 27

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