Katowice Culture Nature Festival / Aphorisms and tales / Modigliani Quartet - NOSPR

György Kurtág is a master of musical aphorism. The cycle Twelve Microludes ('little games’) forms a tiny universe of its own: just a handful of notes, a matching number of silences, and a few elusive gestures. Yet, within this austere musical calligraphy emerges the full, unspoken drama of life.

Claude Debussy’s String Quartet constitutes his early masterpiece. Here, the thirty-year-old composer turns to the legacy of César Franck, weaving the quartet’s four movements together through a cyclic theme that recurs across successive sections. At the same time, he opens a window onto the modern world – a kaleidoscope of colours, rhythms, and textures (complete with hints of Javanese gamelan), a free flow of images and fluctuating moods.

The String Quartet in B-flat major, Op 130 opens the series of five late quartets by Ludwig van Beethoven. These are the true Himalayas of chamber music, demanding – from performers and audiences alike – to rise to new heights. With no small effort. Still, the breathtaking views from the summit are well worth the climb. Unusually, the quartet consists of six movements. In its original guise, it ended with the ecstatic Grosse Fuge, preceded by the deeply melancholic Cavatina. At the urging of the publisher, who believed that the Fugue disrupted the balance of the whole, Beethoven wrote a new finale, which turned out to be his last composition. The Grosse Fuge, Op 133 then became an independent work. Arguments over whether the quartet should be performed in its original or revised version seem destined to last forever. The audience of the Katowice Culture Nature Festival will hear... both finales of this quartet!

Marcin Trzęsiok

Concert duration (intermission included): approximately 120 minutes

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