For the Donizetti Theater’s “Locatelli Ensemble Season,” a concert is staged that investigates sonorities of the quartet explored by three of its leading interpreters between classicism and romanticism.
The string quartet can be considered the princely formation of chamber music, ever since writing for four solo strings became the real test in the second half of the 18th century on which leading composers measured themselves against each other.
The reason is as simple as it is obvious: when faced with meager instrumental resources (when compared to the timbral and expressive possibilities that the orchestra can offer) and fixed (again, in the comparison with orchestral writing it is evident how in favor of the latter there is a possibility of varying the ensemble as needed); what makes the difference becomes only the composer’s ability to write for these instruments and to enhance the peculiarities of each instrument.
If Franz Joseph Haydn is universally recognized as the German “Father of the Quartet,” two composers who are profoundly different from each other but who share a dazzling talent that elevated them above others from an early age-Mozart and Mendellsohn deserve equal mention.
While in Mozart’s quartets one can often appreciate a lightness and writing that entertains the listener, particularly in quartets composed at a young age such as the one proposed, in Mendelssohn the writing always points to an emotional depth that is striking in the intensity and limpid beauty of the melodic lines.
This concert is a wonderful journey into the sounds of the quartet explored by three of its leading interpreters between classicism and romanticism, in which the use of instruments mounted as they were at the time of the composers will bring the listener even closer to the essence of the music of the period.
