New Helsinki Quartet

The String quartet opus 76 no. 3 in C was written by Joseph Haydn towards the end of his creative life. It was nicknamed the 'Kaiserquartett' on account of the widely-known theme with variations that constitutes its core: the simple folk melody 'Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser'. This theme became the Austrian imperial anthem and is currently the melody of the German national anthem. Still, this quartet certainly did not serve any patriotic or belligerent cause at the time. Shostakovich's friendly and unpretentious First Quartet originally bore the subtitle 'Spring'. After the furious struggle that Shostakovich had put up in his Fifth Symphony, the composer sought solace in a controlled neo-classical style in this quartet. 'Do not be afraid, I am not wild, you will sleep softly in my arms,' says Death to the Young Girl in the song 'Der Tod und das Mädchen' by Franz Schubert. It is these first bars of the song that furnish the theme for the famous slow movement of the string quartet of the same title. In this majestically unfolding theme, Schubert meditates on the sweetness and comfort that death can offer. Apparently, the first few performances of this work were met with utter incomprehension on the part of Schubert's contemporaries. It was not until long after his death that the quartet attained the cult status it still has today.