Brentano Quartet 2024

Great American sound and yet finesse in every last musical detail: that is the Brentano Quartet. The quartet, whose name refers to Beethoven's supposed "immortal lover", impresses with its brilliantly coordinated ensemble playing, technical perfection, outstanding vitality and, last but not least, the extraordinary compositions of its programmes, with which it has created a unique selling point in the international chamber music scene. The focus of the programme that the four musicians from New York will present at the start of Meister&Kammerkonzerte 24|25 is a new work by Lei Liang, which he composed in honour of his teacher Chou Wen-chung. The American composer of Chinese origin incorporated into the piece the answers he was able to find in his search for a spiritual home through the inspiration and mentoring of this profound artist. The wandering music from the beginning of the final movement of Beethoven's early String Quartet op. 18 no. 6 also resembles a kind of inner search. According to the ensemble's violist, Misha Amory, there seems to be something far more intense in it than its title (La Maliconia) suggests. The Quartet in D major from Felix Mendelssohn's Op. 44 is of a sustainedly cheerful nature, indeed over long stretches it is extremely bright and full of energy. This cycle was composed between 1837 and 1838, partly during the wedding journey that was to take the composer and his wife Cécile from Frankfurt am Main up the Rhine to Freiburg and back to the Main via Heidelberg.