Nation's Capital Celebrates Classical String Quartets from Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert to Bela Bartok, Helmut Lachenmann, and Matthew Hindson

[Back from a mid-week, mini-retreat in the clear and cool -- and then foggy and wet -- Virginia mountains which were standing in for Mount Huangshan (Yellow Mountain).]

*

November 13, 2008
8 pm
The Kuss Quartet performs Haydn's 'Lark' String Quartet, Lachenmann's String Quartet #3, and Schubert's late 'Rosamunde' String Quartet
Library of Congress
(Free, first come first served)

*

November 14, 2008
8 pm
Takács Quartet and Muzsikás
with Márta Sebestyén. Bartok S.Q. #4, Violin Duos, and folk-songs.
Library of Congress
(Free, first come first served. Limited availability)

*

November 16, 2008
6:30 pm
Euclid String Quartet
Quartets by Beethoven, Matthew Hindson, and Grieg
National Gallery of Art
(Free, first come first served)

*

... "Matthew Hindson writes of Industrial Night Music: “The piece was commissioned by Sandra Yates and Michael Skinner in memory of Michael’s father. One of the aspects of Michael’s father’s life was that he worked as an army engineer. This created a sense of resonance to me as I grew up in the Illawarra, a region of Australia dominated by the steelworks at Port Kembla, briefly working there and also in the blast furnace at the steelworks at Whyalla. The outer sections of Industrial Night Music are built around musical expressions of mechanical and industrial processes viewed at close quarters. These include pollution, grime, dirt, ugliness, heat, a (male) worker surrounded by a surfeit of continually grinding interlocking gears, ‘mecchanico machismo.’ The middle section is quite different: slow-moving, it portrays the still beauty of a large industrial workplace at night, viewed from afar, lit up by thousands of lights like a giant Christmas tree. It is only after one goes within the structures themselves that the true nature of the processes involved are revealed.”

Industrial Night Music received its United States premiere in July 2008. The New York Times said “[it] opened like a roller coaster with two gears: very fast and crazy fast. You could just about catch your breath during a twinkling interlude; then it was full speed ahead to the end.”

Program Notes to National Gallery of Art concert the Euclid String Quartet on November 16, 2008 at 6:30 PM.


















Aboriginal Rock Art, Ubirr Art Site, Kakadu National Park, Australia

Photo credit: (c) Thomas Schoch via Wikipedia Commons. 2005. All rights reserved. With thanks.