The Program

Haydn: Quartet in G Minor, Op. 20, No. 3
Mozart: Quartet in B-flat Major, K. 458, “Hunt”
Beethoven: Quartet in F Major, Op. 135

Pre-concert lecture with Steven Kreinberg at 6:45 pm

The Artists

Founded in 1987 by four members of the Concentus Musicus Wien, the Austrian string quartet Quatuor Mosaïques specializes in music of the 18th century.  The group's members - three Austrian musicians and the French cellist Christophe Coin - got to know each other in Vienna, and with their shared experiences as a starting point, decided to form a classical string quartet playing on period instruments.  Their primary aim was not to create the sort of authenticity that belongs in museums, but rather to ensure in their work a living link to the great European quartet tradition.  Hence an essential inspiration for the group was the Végh Quartet, of which Erich Höbarth had been a member for its last three years.

The Quatuor Mosaïques is regularly described as one of the leading string quartets of the present day, an assertion supported by its many award-winning performances.  The ensemble has received the prestigious Gramophone Award repeatedly for its interpretations of Haydn, and gives concerts regularly with pianists András Schiff and Patrick Cohen, clarinetists Wolfgang and Sabine Meyer, and cellists Miklós Perenyi and Raphael Pidoux.

In 2006 the Quatuor was invited to Spain to play the quartet of Stradivari instruments belonging to the Spanish Crown.  It presented a programme of Cuartetos by Arriaga at the Royal Palace in Madrid, which was subsequently recorded on CD.  The Quatuor Mosaïques’ very extensive repertoire includes rarely-performed works by Pleyel, Tomasini, Werner, Jadin, Gross, Boëly and others, as well as the great names of the classical Viennese repertoire, up to and including Schumann and Brahms.  Increasingly it performs works of the early twentieth century, by composers such as Debussy, Bartók and Webern.