Concerts

The Cambridge String Quartet presents an intriguing programme of string quartets by Beethoven, Haydn and Webern that have been overlooked or overshadowed. Haydn’s last string quartet, Op. 103, was published incomplete, while Beethoven’s Op. 135, the final complete work he ever composed, has puzzled critics by its seeming retreat into convention after the wild experiments of the previous ‘late’ quartets. Curiously and perhaps not coincidentally, both quartets by Haydn and Beethoven feature cryptic references to vocal canons: are these coded messages from the composers from beyond the grave? Framed by an early quartet by Webern, discovered only after his death, the Cambridge String Quartet will explore what it means to be late, last and least in these great composer’s string quartets.