Chiaroscuro Quartet

The Chiaroscuro Quartet has been acclaimed for its interpretations. The quartet was formed in 2005 and plays on gut-string instruments – bringing them closer to the sound the likes of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn had in mind when composing their music. This past season, the quartet performed at venues including Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and toured Japan.

J.S. Bach wrote Die Kunst der Fuge in the last decade of his life. In the work, which consists of 14 fugues and 4 canons, he explores all possibilities of the counterpoint. The work is performed here in a version for string quartet.

Some of Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel’s over 460 works were published in the name of her better-known brother, Felix – in order to be published at all. She composed the String Quartet in E-flat Major in 1834 at 29 years old.

When Beethoven composed his late string quartets, public interest in the art of the quartet was high. Of the quartets he composed in the 1820s, he was most satisfied with Opus 131 in C-sharp minor: it spans a broad palette of expression, conveyed through everything from sweetly lyrical melodies to boisterous humour.