Meta4

In every concert they give, the wonderfully youthful Meta4 never fails to touch the audience's soul. This time, they will be pairing up a wonderful late Beethoven with a heartrending Zemlinsky. Beethoven's Twelfth String Quartet boasts a prodigiously long second movement. Commentators fall over one another to proclaim their adoration for this 'Adagio'. "The most sensuously beautiful movement Beethoven ever wrote", according to one, "Zustand vollkommener elysischer Ruhe", according to another. The composer uses unprecedented techniques to dazzle the listener. As well as gripping you and keeping you in suspense. Zemlinsky's Second Quartet is one of his most turbulent works. In it, he tries to come to terms with a serious trauma from his past. To this end, he stuffs his work full of bizarre symbolism. Only he and Schoenberg fully understand the dramatic message, which refers to Schoenberg's tumultuous marriage to Mathilde, Zemlinsky's freedom-loving sister. Which several years previously had led to the tragic suicide of her lover, the artist Richard Gerstl. This quartet is an ambitious undertaking by Zemlinsky to smooth over the cracks with his precious brother-in-law.