Bennewitz Quartet

Last season, the Bennewitz Quartet made a series of debuts in the Vienna Konzerthaus, the London Wigmore Hall and the Seoul Arts Center. This year, this Prague foursome is making its first appearance here at deSingel. Shared Bohemian roots mean that the occasion is one to dust off the Czech repertoire. No music by Smetana of Janácek, with which the quartet have filled a number of well-received CDs, but of their countryman, Bohuslav Martinu. He wrote his Third String Quartet in the Paris of the 1920s, achieving a wayward mix of cosmopolitan jazz and folk influences. Likewise originating in Paris is Maurice Ravel's sole string quartet, which he dedicated to his teacher Gabriel Fauré. The latter's reaction to it was lukewarm, as in 1893 the work was as shocking to the ears as Robert Schumann's Third String Quartet had been in 1842.