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From Haydn to Brahms: a lost tradition of string playing

Date
Date
Friday 28 October 2016, 1.05pm - 1.55pm

Ferdinand David Quartet: Clive Brown (violin) Ilias Devetzoglou (violin) David Milsom (viola) Kate Bennett Wadsworth (cello)

Joseph Haydn - String Quartet in D major, op 64 no 5 ‘The Lark’
Johannes Brahms - String Quartet in B flat major, op 67

Today we hear the music of the late 18th and 19th centuries very differently from the composers’ contemporaries. Many features of performance hinted at in treatises and other documentary sources are difficult for us to interpret today because of the 20th-century ‘modernist’ rejection of older performing traditions that survived until the very early days of recording. Even among period-instrument performers, the implications of verbal and tone documents have scarcely been explored.  The members of the Ferdinand David Ensemble have focused intensively on rediscovering the sound and style of this period. In this concert they will used the bowed and fingered edition of Haydn’s quartet made by Ferdinand David, who was born a few months after the composer’s death. The performance of Brahms’ quartet, from the 1st edition, reflects the performing practices described in the new Bärenreiter edition of Brahms’ complete duo sonatas edited by Clive Brown, Neal Peres Da Costa and Kate Bennett Wadsworth.

Admission Free

Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall