Hagen Quartett

Haydn, Beethoven en Bartók: three architects of the string quartet, performed by one of the world's premier ensembles, the Hagen Quartett. This is how the ideal classical quartet evening should look. Haydn's late quartets, which include the opus 76, made him the primary example for Mozart and Beethoven. The String Quartet in G contains absolutely masterful music by a composer who succeeded in giving his imagination free rein while remaining within the bounds of convention. Beethoven's three Razumovsky Quartets are of the same order. Only the third quartet gained approval from the press and the public at its first performance. With a jazzy bass solo in the second movement and a fugal 'head over heels' finale, it is an overwhelming work. Beethoven himself said of it, 'I did not write this for you, but for a later age'. Thus the leap to Bartók is easily made. In his Third Quartet, we reach the apex of his compositional abilities. The work is a perfect synthesis of extremely tight form and exuberant expressivity, demonstrating that Bartók is the true successor of Haydn and of Beethoven.