大象传媒

The Consone Quartet and friends play Haydn and Brahms and give the London premiere of Gavin Bryars's Sextet 'The Bridges of K枚nigsberg.'

The young period instrument string quartet, former Radio 3 New Generation Artists, promise to bring fresh insights to the music of Haydn and Brahms at this concert recorded at one of London's landmark churches. The programme opens with one of the quartets that Haydn brought with him to London in 1790 and ends with Brahms when the Consone Quartet are joined by two colleagues for his second string sextet, this one written in the aftermath of a failed love affair. And in between, we witness a piece of history in the making, the London premiere of The Bridges of K枚nigsberg by Gavin Bryars who celebrated his eightieth birthday earlier this year. Springing to fame with such early works as The Sinking of the Titanic and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, Gavin Bryars's haunting new work captures the melancholic world of the K枚nigsberg of the great Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant in music of meditative beauty.

Presented by Ian Skelly at the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London.

Haydn: String Quartet in E flat, Op. 64, No.6
Gavin Bryars: String Sextet 鈥楾he Bridges of K枚nigsberg鈥� (London premiere)
Brahms: String Sextet No. 2 in G, Op.36

The Consone Quartet
with
Ren茅e Hemsing (viola)
Guy Fishman (cello)

Gavin Bryars writes: "While the subtitle 'The Bridges of K枚nigsberg鈥� refers to a well-known mathematical puzzle, it also gives a link to a chamber opera that I have wanted to do for almost 40 years, The Last Days of Immanuel Kant. K枚nigsberg, now Kaliningrad, was where Kant lived for his entire life, and where he established unerringly repetitive daily routines. Unlike Konigsberg, my 鈥渕athematical鈥� problem involved just six elements not seven: how to manage the integration of two additional players into an existing long-established unit, the string quartet, in as many ways as possible, step by step, and with maximum diplomacy鈥�"