As the name suggests, NOVO Quartet is one of the newer chamber music ensembles in Denmark- founded in 2018 -but they have already made a strong international impression, winning top prizes at competitions in Geneva, Heidelberg, and Trondheim. Most recently, they have been selected as BBC New Generation Artists 2025–27.
Here they perform music by two composers who were absolutely pivotal in shaping the modern idea of the string quartet as four individual musicians collaborating to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Both works were written late in the lives of Haydn and Beethoven, at a time when their reputations were firmly established. Yet although only 27 years separate the two quartets, they represent vastly different worlds: the 67-year-old Haydn still inhabits the aesthetic of the 18th century, while the 56-year-old Beethoven points toward the music of an unknown future.