The Elias always strike me with their diligence, candour and unguarded, searching commitment, but this performance adds new daring and flair… Given the technical composure and focus of the playing it’s doubly impressive that this was recorded live.

gramophone magazine

Founded in 1998 at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, the Elias String Quartet is one of the UK’s foremost ensembles, celebrated by BBC Music Magazine as a ‘tour de force’ and The Strad as a ‘remarkable ensemble.’ They return to Duke Arts with a recital pairing wrought, emotional string quartets by the composing siblings, Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn. Fanny’s is her only mature string quartet, and one of the earliest surviving quartets written by a woman that we have on record. It celebrates German Romanticism, with dazzling flourishes of virtuosity and harmonic innovation. Her brother’s String Quartet No. 6 was written a decade later in tribute to her. Known as ‘Requiem for Fanny,’ the quartet was Felix’s final musical offering before his death, complete with unrelenting rhythms, syncopations and chromaticism. Following his sister’s death in May 1847, Felix was distraught, pouring his grief into this piece before he died several months later. Bridging these quartets is Entr’acte by North Carolina native Caroline Shaw, one of the most exciting voices on the contemporary chamber music scene today.

Program

Fanny Mendelssohn: String Quartet in E-flat-Major
Caroline Shaw: “Entr’act”
Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, Op. 80

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