IMMORTAL BELOVED
Late Beethoven and Shostakovich String Quartets with the Corleone Quartet
Sunday 1st November from 6:00 pm
A candle-lit performance in the Brompton cemetery chapel of two classic late string quartets by Beethoven and Shostakovich with the Corleone Quartet.
Tickets £12 including a Hendrick's Gin Cocktail.
Beethoven string quartet no 14 in C sharp minor, opus 131. Written in 1826, the year before he died, by a profoundly deaf Beethoven its first movement, according to Richard Wagner, "reveals the most melancholy sentiment expressed in music". Schubert said on hearing a performance of the quartet "after this, what is there left for us to write?" When he was himself dying in 1828, his last request was to hear the quartet played. Beethoven rated it as his most perfect work.
Shostakovich string quartet no 13 in B flat minor, opus 138. Bleak, dark and disturbing, this quartet was written in hospital in 1970 when the ailing Shostakovich was becoming increasingly preoccupied with his own mortality. Described as a "languid dance of death" it contains eerie features such as when the performers are instructed to rap on their instruments with their bows like Death knocking on the door. Shostakovich died of lung cancer in 1975.