Repertoire

Raquel García-Tomás: String Quartet. Barcelona premiere
Ludwig van Beethoven: Great Fugue, Op. 133
Franz Schubert: String Quartet D. 810 “Death and the Maiden”

Artists

Abel Tomàs, violin
Vera Martínez Mehner, violin
Cristina Cordero, viola
Arnau Tomàs, cello

Program

The internationally renowned Casals Quartet, an inspiration to many generations, is presenting a programme that links tradition and the present with an unusual intensity. The Barcelona premiere of the new Raquel García-Tomás quartet will start off the evening with a composition that critics have described as “hypnotic in its work with timbre” and “featuring a narrative tension that transforms silence into expressive material”. The composer deploys changing textures and a thought-provoking sound dramaturgy that ranges from microscopic detail to global impact.

Beethoven’s Great Fugue, Op. 133, bursts into the heart of the programme with its defiant architecture: a contrapuntal monument of almost abstract energy that surprises listeners to this day with its radical rhythmics and harmonic audacity. The programme will conclude with Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” Quartet in D minor D. 810, in which the theme of the lied of the same name is transformed into variations of both tragic and lyrical intensity. This vibrant, revealing experience explains why the Casals Quartet is one of the best in the world in this field.

Bicentenary of Beethoven’s death.