The Alexander String Quartet with Robert Greenberg, music historian-in-residence

The String Quartet at a Time of War: Benjamin Britten and His Contemporaries

Program 1 (January 12):
“The Gathering Storm”
BRITTEN: Three Divertimenti for String Quartet (1933, rev. 1936) 
HAAS: Quartet No. 3 (1938)

Program 2 (January 19): 
“Their Finest Hour” 
BARTÓK: Quartet No. 6 (1939) 
BRITTEN: Quartet No. 1 (1941)

Program 3 (March 9): 
“The Hinge of Fate” 
BRITTEN: Quartet No. 2 (1945) 
WALTON: Quartet in A minor (1946)

Program 4 (March 16):
“Triumph and Tragedy” 
BRITTEN: Quartet No. 3 (1975) 
SHOSTAKOVICH: Quartet No. 8 (1960)

World War II (1939–1945) was the single most harrowing and devastating event of the twentieth century. Framed by the string quartets of Benjamin Britten, whose centennial will be celebrated in 2013, this series will explore works that reflect the broader European experience of the War years, as well as the period immediately before (Program 1) and after (Program 4). Aside from Britten’s superb quartets, the series will feature some of the most important string quartets composed during the twentieth century, including quartets by Pavel Haas (who perished in Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944), Béla Bartók, William Walton and Dmitri Shostakovich.