This chamber music series will be opened by the winner of the 2006 Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition, Agata Szymczewska, and the excellent Karol Szymanowski Quartet, of which she has recently become the leader. The musicians will perform two monumental examples of string quartets. First, the audience will hear Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18. Although this piece, and in fact the entire Opus 18, is regarded as deeply rooted in the Classical era, we can already see here some characteristic features of the composer’s later, more perverse works. They are reflected, for example, in their rich harmony, or a Scherzo replacing the second – traditionally slow and lyrical – movement of the cycle. Beethoven was a little like King Midas: whatever genre he touched, he thoroughly transformed it into something more precious. Beethoven’s interference in the patterns (almost algorithms) developed and solidified in the Classical era, caused righteous indignation among some, while in others it spurred them to rebel against existing rules and principles.

In fact, a true renunciation of classical forms took place just one hundred years later. However, even then, some artists still longed for the music of bygone eras. One such composer was the Englishman Benjamin Britten. Although today known mainly for his operas and monumental symphonic works, he was also an expert in chamber music, of which his String Quartet No. 3 is the best proof. Completed in 1975, it was one of his final pieces. Unfortunately, the composer did not live to hear its public premiere. According to critics, one of the greatest features of the piece is the slow pace with which Britten builds the narrative of this work in six movements, which is quite an atypical number for this genre.

Although Karol Szymanowski’s oeuvre does not include many works for string quartet, this did not discourage the Quartet from deciding to close its performance with one of the most popular pieces of its patron – Nocturne and Tarantella for violin and piano, obviously transcribed for a string quartet. In this version of the work, the composer’s original harmonic idiom and unique sound, hidden behind the light and spectacular character of this virtuoso piece, take on a completely new dimension.

Bartłomiej Gembicki