Kelemen Quartet Presented by Liszt Academy

When the Kelemen Quartet resumed performing after a temporary break, they undertook the monumental task of performing all six of Béla Bartók’s string quartets in two concerts. “The Kelemen Quartet’s playing was always characterized by the fact that the four musicians intellectually approached Bartók’s music in accordance with its complexity, highlighting the intellectual content of the music, the structure’s logic, and the connection of motifs in the dialogue between the parts, conveying the purity of Bartók’s approach”, wrote one critic. At this concert, we will hear “only” one of Bartók’s string quartets, preceded by a somewhat unusual choice of music – Purcell compositions. It is well-known that during Henry Purcell’s time, at the end of the 17th century, the string quartet as a genre did not yet exist, but the fantasies he wrote in 1680 have become valuable pieces in the string quartet repertoire. The term “fantasy” is somewhat misleading, as in these works, Purcell applied the strictest forms of polyphonic structure, and many compare the cycle to Bach’s famous series, such as The Art of Fugue or Musikalisches Opfer. The concert will conclude with Brahms’ grandiose string sextet.