Once again, the Classical Summer Concerts are delighted to present a range of world-class musicians, performing amongst the Roman gods and heroes in the Glyptotek’s atmospheric Central Hall.
Over the past more than 15 years, the Arild Quartet has established itself as a significant presence in Danish musical life, not least through its work with Beethoven’s complete string quartets. The ensemble has toured extensively in countries including Brazil, Scotland, Germany, Finland, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Sweden.
Another widely travelled figure was Andrey Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador to Vienna in the early 19th century—a count with a great love of music. Razumovsky commissioned three string quartets from Beethoven specifically for the city’s outstanding new quartet, inspiring Beethoven to write for the genre with an unprecedented level of ambition and complexity.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the French composer Claude Debussy wrote his first string quartet—also for one of the leading ensembles of the time, with violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe as primarius. The result was a work that, like Beethoven’s, pushed the string quartet genre further toward new frontiers of tonality and expression.