A golden generation of string players.
Meet a star-studded ensemble of musicians performing on some of the world's most sought-after string instruments, on loan from Anders Sveaas’ Charitable Foundation. With music spanning four centuries, exceptional talent and legendary instruments, everything is in place for an El Dorado in Håkonshallen.
At the heart of the programme is the Romantic golden age, from Grieg’s sparkling prelude to ‘the Holberg Suite’ to Brahms’ String Quintet No. 2. Here, the old master displays his exceptional handling of musical motifs, bittersweet melodies and, in the finale, his enthusiasm for ‘Hungarian music’. ‘Hungarian’ colour and masterful craftsmanship also characterise the finale of Schubert’s chamber music swansong, the String Quintet in C major. Shostakovich’s Two Pieces for String Octet (1925) foreshadows the mysterious, ghostly sound and frenzied desperation that would come to define his modernism, much to the dismay of the authorities and to the delight of generations of listeners. The programme also features the world premiere of a work by fellow seeker of the golden sound, Njord Fossnes, alongside a solo piece by Paganini.
Overshadowed by her male colleagues, Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz wrote music that shared the emerging modernism of Shostakovich. Her Quartet for Four Violins (1949) is reminiscent of Bartók, with touches of neoclassicism and folk music. Swedish composer Amanda Maier-Röntgen was a close friend of Grieg. ‘She was one of my favourites,’ Grieg wrote in a letter to Amanda’s husband, Julius Röntgen, after she died of illness at the age of 41. Maier-Röntgen was young and active in musical circles when she wrote her String Quartet in A major in 1877. Parts of the quartet survived only as fragments and have been completed by Bengt Tommy Andersson. However, the second movement is intact and full of the same Romantic yearning and intensity found in the music of Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms.
Thanks to instruments on loan from Anders Sveaas’ Charitable Foundation (ASAF), the musicians will perform on exceptional instruments from the 17th and 18th centuries. Stradivari, Guadagnini, Ruggieri and Amati were the founding fathers of the golden age of instrument making, crafting violins, violas and cellos that are shrouded in myth and remain among the most sought-after instruments in the world.
The concert is a gift from ASAF to mark the 75th jubilee of the Bergen International Festival.
Truls Mørk. Photo: Johs. Bøe
