Tring Chamber Music 2019 Beethoven - First and Last

In this programme we present both the starting and finishing posts of Beethoven’s magnificent musical odyessy, providing a picture frame perhaps for his creative life. Although the D major Quartet Op 18 is numbered as the third, it was in fact the first to be written. Some 28 years later, in his last major completed work, he both poses and answers fateful questions: ‘Must it be ? — It must be’. This subtle and prophetic music is something to treasure. As an ‘entr’acte’ we play a selection of Bartok’s finest Duos for 2 violins. Always popular, these vignettes of Hungarian folk music display Bartok at his most engaging and direct. With the Serenade for solo cello, Hans Werner Henze has given us a group of miniatures which evoke familiar musical forms and dances in his own unmistakeable and original voice.