***PLEASE NOTE: All are welcome to watch this live performance virtually. Only Lawrence University faculty, students, and staff are allowed to attend on campus/in-person.
We are very happy to be visiting our friends from the north at Lawrence University for an evening of two French stunners: Claude Debussy and Henri Dutilleux.
One of the most recognizable pieces in the chamber music literature, Debussy’s String Quartet in G minor famously winds his iconic opening motive through the turbulent and the transcendent. This is a work actively separating itself from the Beethov-ian tradition and adequate adjectives are quickly exhausted when describing it. Whether this is your first or your fifteenth encounter, the word “ravishing” is likely to be bouncing around your brain in the days to come.
Dutilleux’s sound-painting of the crepuscular dark, Ainsi la nuit (“Thus the Night”) may see stages less often than it’s Debussy counterpart, but it is no less fascinating. Like Proust’s description of sense memory – the famed madeleine cookie – Dutilleux gives us hints or shards of his melodies and harmonies before ever stating them in full. It gives the impression of familiarity, but in a somewhat elusive and mysterious way that only becomes apparent after the fact. We’ve fallen in love with this quartet, and we can’t wait for you to, as well.
Speaking of elusive, we are pleased to share with you one of our most inspiring commissions to-date: Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s first string quartet, Enigma. Sliding between the realms of melody and noise, this introspective work lives at the border of light and dark, causing it to seem colossal and microscopic at the same time. Your mind is likely to travel to corners that you haven’t explored in quite a while…
PROGRAM
Claude Debussy – String Quartet in G minor (1893)
Henri Duttileux – Ainsi la nuit (1976)
Anna Thorvaldsdottir – Enigma (2019)
Spektral Quartet’s programming is supported by our members, our donors, and by the following foundations and organizations:
