Mozart: The "Haydn" Quartets
Sat, Feb 27, 2027, 7:30 pm
Alice Tully Hall
2 hours, including intermission
Both a gesture of respect and a claim of musical territory, Mozart’s six “Haydn” quartets were dedicated to the father of the genre in 1785. Declaring Mozart “the greatest composer known to me” after hearing them, Haydn rightly foresaw a place for these works in the pantheon of string quartets, each incomparable in skill, beauty, and invention.
Program
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756–1791)Quartet in G major for Strings, K. 387
(1782)Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756–1791)Quartet in D minor for Strings, K. 421
(1783)Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756–1791)Quartet in C major for Strings, K. 465, "Dissonance"
(1785)
Escher String Quartet
The Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its profound musical insight and rare tonal beauty. A former BBC New Generation Artist and recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the quartet has performed at the BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall and is a regular guest at Wigmore Hall. In its home town of New York, the ensemble appears regularly at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
The quartet achieved critical success in their performances of the entire cycle of string quartets by Béla Bartók in single-concert format, both at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Recordings of the complete Mendelssohn quartets and beloved Romantic quartets of Dvorák, Borodin, and Tchaikovsky were released on the BIS label in 2015–18 and were received with the highest critical acclaim.
Beyond the concert hall, the quartet is proud to announce the creation of a new non-profit, ESQYRE (Escher String Quartet Youth Residency Education). ESQYRE’s mission as a non-profit classical music organization is to provide a comprehensive educational program through music performance and instruction for people of all ages. In addition to their non-profit work, the quartet has also held faculty positions at Southern Methodist University and the University of Akron.
Within months of its inception in 2005, the ensemble came to the attention of key musical figures worldwide. Championed by the Emerson String Quartet, the Escher String Quartet was invited by both Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman to be Quartet in Residence at each artist’s summer festival: the Young Artists Program at Canada’s National Arts Centre, and the Perlman Chamber Music Program on Shelter Island, New York.
The Escher String Quartet takes its name from the Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher, inspired by Escher’s method of interplay between individual components working together to form a whole.