Quatuor Ébène & Cuarteto Casals

The Barcelona Quartet Biennale begins with a programme full of musical crossovers. In Reflections on the theme B-A-C-H, Sofia Gubaidulina extracts a theme from The Art of Fugue by J. S. Bach, which will play a central role in this year's Biennale. Variations are explored in a short work, with a certain spectral air, which is, above all, a great homage to the late Baroque master. W.A. Mozart’s String Quartet in G major, K. 387, known as "Spring," is part of a series of six quartets that ​​Mozart dedicated to the father of string quartets, Joseph Haydn, who was a friend of his. Mozart composed his “Spring” quartets in 1782, a year after the premiere of Haydn’s String Quartets Op. 33, which had greatly impressed Mozart. The “Spring" quartet, written towards the end of the composer's life, is a work of great exhibition clarity. Brahms String Quartet No. 3 in B-flat major, Op. 67 is a rather lively and jovial composition, which Brahms created with the intention of moving away from the seriousness of his First Symphony, which premiered just one week after the quartet.