The New Esterhazy Quartet: Early Haydn and Late Beethoven Quartets November 30, 2012

Barefoot Chamber Concerts continues its mission to help you start the weekend right. The series ("an enterprise noted for both its quality and informality" - San Francisco Classical Voice) presents really good music in the right acoustic and without the formality of most classical music events. Our concerts start at 6 on Fridays and last no more than 75 minutes. Kids are very welcome if quiet, and admission under 18 is free. Light refreshments are available before, during, and after the concert. There will be ample time to move on to other evening entertainments.

The series is delighted to present The New Esterhazy Quartet playing a late Beethoven quartet (Bb Opus 130) and an early Haydn quartet (G major Opus 17 # 5), as part of their sequence of concerts entitled Haydn & His Students.

The Beethoven quartet is epic and, mostly, festive. Instead of the usual four movements we have six. The first movement has no less than 15 changes of tempo. The second movement is quick, humorous, and gone in a flash. The third seems to begin in utmost seriousness, which turns out to be just the introduction to a genial bit of clockwork. The next might be the tipsy dance band come to entertain the guests at table with a waltz tune that is full of strange lurches and wrong-footed accents. After the dance ends abruptly, a singer stands and delivers a Cavatina, a movement that Beethoven declared "was composed in the very tears of misery . . ." Then, finally, a contradance with lyrical interludes, a dreamlike ending to a whirlwind of a piece. Haydn himself is represented in our program by his theatrical Op. 17, No. 5 in G. This much loved quartet is, like the Beethoven, theatrical and full of dramatic turns. The two quartets are perfectly matched pieces from radically different eras, and the echos from one to the other only seem to underline their difference of spirit.

For more details, and to order tickets online, visit www.barefootchamberconcerts.com

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