Attacca Quartet I BEETHOVEN 250

String quartets by Ludwig van Beethoven are compositions that have enjoyed unflagging popularity around the world. Both their form and musical content are important. Today's concert is inaugurating the new season's special program series of chamber concerts. We invite you to listen to Beethoven's late quartets interpreted by an internationally renowned ensemble!

Beethoven's quartets are divided into three periods: early, middle and late. His early quartets, No. 1-6, resemble the style of Haydn and Mozart. The first three of his middle quartets, No. 7-11, are called Rasumovsky quartets, after the contracting authority – the then Russian ambassador in Vienna.

Beethoven's sad and grim emotions from the last years of his life are well reflected in his late quartets, No. 12-16. Listening to the initial phrases of numbers 12-15, we can experience that each of them has a slow, chorale beginning – a completely different climate than in the early and middle quartets. It can, therefore, be said that Beethoven's quartets, like symphonies, are a reflection of the emotions of his life.

The New York-based band Attaca Quartet is this year's Grammy Award winners for the best chamber music recording, created with vocalist Caroline Shaw. For the Szczecin Philharmonic, the Attaca Quartet will perform Ludwig van Beethoven's string quartets, which they have been presenting in various parts of the world as part of the ‘Based on Beethoven’ project for four years now.

‘We are living in a golden age of string quartets... It's hard to disagree with this when you hear the lively young musicians from Attaca Quartet,’ wrote the US National Public Radio. The ensemble, founded in 2003, has already managed to establish cooperation with all major concert halls in the United States, including the New York Carnegie Hall. Its European and Asian career is currently developing. ‘The mastery they represent is rare even in quartets that have been playing together for decades,’ praises The Washington Post.

The next concerts with the late quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven will take place on November 18th – in the performance of Karłowicz Quartet and ÉxQuartet, Quartet No. 16 and the Great Fuba in B major will sound as well, and on December 20th – Cuarteto Casals will perform Quartets No. 14 and No. 15.