Litany and Rapture | The Edinburgh Quartet

Alongside Beethoven’s Op 18 quartets, the focus of our third instalment to the Exile project is Schoenberg’s String Quartet No 2, featuring soprano voice.

Schoenberg wrote this work at a time of deep personal catastrophy, and features the setting of texts by poet Stefan George, perfomed with us by Emma Morwood. The first, ‘Litanei’, is a cry of a lost soul. The second, ‘Entrückung’, is about transcendence - the opening words welcoming in a new world.

Part of the Edinburgh Quartet's Exile project; a reflection on isolation and remoteness featuring the works of composers who have been informed by their own sense of exile.