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Thursday, September 15, 2022, 8.00 pm
Dvořák Collection Chamber Series

Ticket prices

590 — 190 Kč

Programme

Eleanor Alberga: String Quartet No. 2Benjamin Britten: String Quartet No. 3 in G Major, Op. 94Antonín Dvořák: String Quartet No. 14 in A flat Major, Op. 105, B. 193

The Juilliard String Quartet (USA) will contribute to the combined Chamber Series and Dvořák Collection with a performance of Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, which the composer sketched out while living in the United States. Dvořák did not fully get back to work on the quartet until after returning home; the New York ensemble is repeating the journey that the work made immediately after it was composed. Unlike Beethoven, Dvořák does not philosophise in his last quartet. Instead, the positive outlook of a stable personality with tendencies towards nostalgia goes hand in hand with the compositional skill of a mature composer. The second movement, growing out of a single theme, will be heard in the programme as an echo of the repeating patterns from the String Quartet No. 2 by the contemporary British composer Eleanor Alberga. At the midpoint of the programme is the String Quartet No. 3 by the most important British composer of the 20th century, Benjamin Britten. A day earlier, the festival audience will hear the orchestral Sea Interludes from Britten’s opera Peter Grimes, but this time he will be represented in a more intimate setting, which he handled with the same mastery as when writing for large orchestra and operatic voices.

  • Dress code: dark suit
  • Doors close: 7.55 pm
  • End of concert: 9.40 pm
  • Aftertalk

Artists

Juilliard String Quartet

With unparalleled artistry and enduring vigour, the Juilliard String Quartet continues to inspire audiences around the world. Founded in 1946 and hailed by the Boston Globe as “the most important American quartet in history”, the Juilliard draws on a deep and vital engagement to the classics, while embracing the mission of championing new works, a vibrant combination of the familiar and the daring. Each performance of the Juilliard Quartet is a unique experience, bringing together the four members’ profound  understanding, total commitment, and unceasing curiosity in sharing the wonders of the string quartet literature.


In the 2018-19 season, the Juilliard String Quartet has performed amongst others in Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, London, Oslo, Athens, Vancouver, Toronto and New York, with many return engagements all over the USA. The season has also introduced newly commissioned string quartets by the composers Lembit Beecher, Jesse Jones and Richard Wernick. Furthermore in this season the quartet has enjoyed piano quintet collaborations with the celebrated Marc-André Hamelin.

After concerts at Amsterdam Biennale as well as the Vienna Musikverein in January 2020 the Juilliard String Quartet will perform again in Europe in the summer of 2021, amongst others in Verbier, the Kultursommer Nordhessen and at Wartburg Castle. In 2022 the quartet will premiere two newly commissioned string quartets by the renowned composer Jörg Widmann.

Having recently celebrated its 70th anniversary, the Juilliard String Quartet marked the past seasons moreover with return appearances in Seattle, Santa Barbara, Pasadena, Memphis, Raleigh, Houston, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Copenhagen. It continued its acclaimed annual performances in Detroit and Philadelphia, along with numerous concerts at home in New York City, including appearances at Lincoln Center and Town Hall.

Adding to its celebrated discography, the JSQ released a new album featuring the world premiere recording of Mario Davidovsky’s Fragments (2016), together with Beethoven Quartet Op. 95 and Bartók Quartet No. 1, which is available on the SONY label. Celebrating one of the great collaborative relationships in American music, Sony Classical’s reissue of the Juilliard Quartet’s landmark recordings of the first four Elliott Carter String Quartets together with the 2013 recording of the Carter Quartet No. 5 traces a remarkable period in the evolution of both the composer and the ensemble. The quartet’s recordings of the Bartók and Schoenberg Quartets, as well as those of Debussy, Ravel and Beethoven, have won Grammy Awards, and in 2011 the JSQ became the first classical music ensemble to receive a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. In 2021 a recording of works by Beethoven, Bartók and Dvořák has been released.

Being devoted master teachers, the members of the Juilliard String Quartet offer classes and open rehearsals when on tour. The JSQ is string quartet in residence at Juilliard and its members are all soughtafter teachers on the string and chamber music faculties. Each May, they host the five-day internationally recognized Juilliard String Quartet Seminar. During the summer, the JSQ works closely on string quartet repertoire with students at the Tanglewood Music Center.

Areta Zhulla joins the Juilliard String Quartet as first violinist beginning the 2018-19 season.

Source: Konzertdirektion Andrea Hampl

Juilliard String Quartet

Rudolfinum, Dvořák Hall

The Rudolfinum is one of the most important Neo-Renaissance edifices in the Czech Republic. In its conception as a multi-purpose cultural centre it was quite unique in Europe at the time of its construction. Based on a joint design by two outstanding Czech architects, Josef Zítek and Josef Schultz, a magnificent building was erected serving for concerts, as a gallery, and as a museum. The grand opening on 7 February 1885 was attended by Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria, in whose honour the structure was named. In 1896 the very first concert of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra took place in the Rudolfinum's main concert hall, under the baton of the composer Antonín Dvořák whose name was later bestowed on the hall.