Sibelius: Andante Festivo
Beethoven: Quartet in F, Op.135 [Pavel Haas Quartet]
Beamish: Field of Stars for four quartets [world premiere]
Mendelssohn: Octet, Op.20 [Belcea and Castalian Quartets]
Belcea Quartet
Castalian Quartet
Elias Quartet
Pavel Haas Quartet
4×4: Four string quartets join forces to complete 2025’s cycle of Beethoven’s late quartets and play an octet and a … what shall we call it? A hextet? In fact, a hextet is computer terminology for ‘a 16-bit aggregation’: in the absence of anything better to describe a piece for 16 players, we’ll borrow that. These are the string quartets which have made the greatest impact at ENF over the years, all of them more usually to be heard in the great concert halls of the world than here in the Bowhouse – and that makes this occasion all the more unmissable.
With Beethoven’s Op.135 the Pavel Haas Quartet conclude 2025’s cycle of late quartets. It is a wonderful piece not least because, having journeyed far in the preceding four pieces, he returns for his last quartet to something more like the traditional quartet his great forebears Haydn and Mozart knew. As warm and heartfelt as it is profound, it is a poignant, affirmative end to a life’s work. As Beethoven was writing his late quartets, the 16-year-old Felix Mendelssohn was pulling off the astounding feat of writing his octet – a masterpiece which has never failed to delight and astonish players and listeners alike.
