Xander Croft, violin
Miles Ames, violin
Inis Oirr Asano, viola
Felix Hugues, cello
The letter dedicating Mozart’s quartets to Haydn is well known, in which the composer presents them as his sons and entrusts them to the affection of his eldest son, while admitting that they were the “fruit of long and arduous labour”. The writing process took at least three years, and bears the marks of Mozart’s hesitations and numerous corrections. Quartet No. 19 brings this revolutionary cycle to an explosive close, introduced by the play of dissonances that gave the work its name. Mozart’s contemporaries were astonished. Only Haydn remained moderate, commenting that Mozart must have “had his reasons”… The three years it took Haydn to conceive the quartets are nothing compared to the twenty years it took Brahms to feel ready to compose a score for four string instruments. His second quartet is the fruit of the composer’s experience of chamber music. This programme will be performed by the second ensemble in residence in Bordeaux, the London-based Elmore Quartet, winners of first prize from the Kirchman Concert Society Artists and the Tunnell Trust Awards. They will be coming to France to share their vision of these two monuments of the repertoire for sixteen strings.
Program :
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Quartet No. 19 in C major KV 465, “Les Dissonances”
Johannes Brahms, Quartet No. 2 in A minor Op. 51
