Early Haydn

Old music is alive and the number of quartets dedicated to historically informed performance practice is increasing. The Kitgut Quartet of Amandine Beyer immerses itself in the time of Haydn, Albrechtsberger, and Schubert, three composers embedded in the classical Viennese music style. Schubert is the youngest and seems to represent a different era, but his Seventh string quartet is based on classical principles.

Does coincidence exist? The young composer and violinist Joseph Haydn – not yet “Papa”, but rather “puppy” Haydn – played with three random other string players for the Viennese Count Von Fürnberg. The accidental harmony was so pleasing that the count asked Haydn for more repertoire for this combination. In the works that followed, Haydn laid the foundation for the string quartet, the medium that has given us so much beautiful music. In the concert series Early Haydn, the classical beauty of Haydn’s Opus 33 is in the hands of a different quartet every morning.