Artis Quartet: Mozart and Beethoven in Vienna @ West Cork Chamber Music Festival 2021 – Bantry and Beyond
Our Opening Concert contrasts the youthful exuberance and vigour of 16-year-old Mozart with the power and complexity of late Beethoven. Early Mozart is full of jewels like this Quartet, most probably composed in snatched intervals while rehearsing his seventh opera in Milan or at stopovers on the tedious and uncomfortable journey from Salzburg. The sunny opening movement delights the spirits in a celebratory C major while the minor key Andante contains many pre-echoes of arias yet to be written, all topped off with a cheerful presto Finale. Beethoven’s late B flat quartet offers no such easy simplicities although its outwardly Divertimento character does offer two genial, dance-like movements. It seems Beethoven even surprised himself with his famous Finale, once described as the maddest fugue in Western music. For centuries Beethoven’s late quartets had a fearsome reputation, but modern Quartets can all master the difficulties without in any way softening the ferocious impact of that magnificent Fugue.
All works performed by Artis Quartet
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West Cork Chamber Music Festival 2021: Bantry and Beyond (28 May–25 July)
West Cork Chamber Music Festival goes virtual. Although the circumstances for enjoying chamber music are different this year, the quality of the artists and the diversity and excellence of the programming are as high as ever.
The West Cork Chamber Music Festival is delighted to introduce its virtual incarnation, Bantry and Beyond. As the Festival musicians could not come to Bantry, the Festival has gone to the musicians. Festival-goers will become virtual travellers to destinations around Europe and USA. They will visit famous concert halls in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Chicago; historic Great Houses of Ireland and the Netherlands; a centuries old abbey with a fabulous library; Palaces in Prague and Vienna; old churches in London, Bantry and Amsterdam; a vaulted tunnel under a vanished convent in Cologne; studios in Amsterdam and Berlin; and Music Centres in Hungary and Italy.
The thirty Festival concerts will commence with four themed weekends starting in Vienna on 28 May before moving to daily concerts 25 June – 4 July followed by a coda of five concerts later in July. The concerts will be streamed by the platform OurConcerts.live. A PDF of the programme is available below.
Box office will open on 20th May 1pm and tickets can be bought here.
Audiences can buy a Festival Pass for all concerts, packages of 6 concerts, or single concerts.
All concerts will be available On Demand for 48 hours after broadcast. Visit the Box office link above to learn more.