Artis Quartett Wien & Birgid Steinberger

The Artis Quartett Wien ushers in the vocal chamber music series with a programme that is about as Viennese as their name. Special guest Birgid Steinberger, a favourite with the public at the Wiener Volksoper and the Staatsoper, is the jewel in the crown in this Viennese tête-à-tête. Haydn's opus 20 quartets inspired Robert Schumann seventy years later when he scored his opus 41. 'I can guarantee that the three quartets are not inferior to Haydn's', he wrote to Clara. The Second String Quartet (1908) by Arnold Schoenberg is, quite rightly, considered revolutionary. Not only does the composer introduce a soprano voice into the string quartet repertoire, but in the last section - 'Ich fühle Luft von anderen Planeten' - he finally frees himself from the laws of tonality. The fact that Vienna at the turn of the century was not only the setting for an atonal revolution, is apparent from the late-romantic songs by Joseph Marx.