The Art of the String Quartet

MARCH 16, 2026

@7:30pm

CALIDORE STRING QUARTET

Jeffrey Myers, violin

Ryan Meehan, violin

Jeremy Berry, viola

Estelle Choi, cello

Take a journey of exploration through a groundbreaking Beethoven work with an exquisite slow movement that moved the great master himself to tears. Also featured on this program is a lyrical, action-packed quartet by Haydn and an elegiac,  “self-portrait” by Shostakovich.  

Praised by the New York Times for their “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct,” the Calidore String Quartet will be making their Linton Chamber Music debut on these concerts.

Whether you’re new to chamber music or a longtime fan, this concert offers a powerful and personal listening experience.

This concert is approximately 2 hours, including intermission.

Program Notes

Franz Joseph Haydn
String Quartet in D Major, Op.76, No. 5

Allegretto
Largo. Cantabile e mesto
Menuetto. Allegro
Finale. Presto

Composed in 1796–97, Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in D major, Op. 76, No. 5 belongs to the celebrated set of six “Erdödy” quartets, written for Count Joseph Erdödy shortly after Haydn returned to Vienna from his triumphant visits to London. By this time, Haydn was in his sixties and widely regarded as Europe’s most influential composer. Freed from the long years of service to the Esterházy court and energized by hearing his works performed for large public audiences, he entered a remarkably fertile late period. The Op. 76 quartets represent the culmination of his lifelong development of the string quartet, combining technical mastery with emotional breadth and imaginative freedom. Within the set, the fifth quartet stands apart for its unusual structure and for the prominence of its slow movement, which became so admired for its solemn beauty that the work is sometimes nicknamed the “Largo” or even the “Graveyard” Quartet.

The opening Allegretto departs from the more dramatic sonata-style beginnings of many Classical quartets. Instead, Haydn presents a gentle pastoral melody that unfolds with relaxed grace before darker minor-key passages introduce turbulence and contrast. The music moves between brightness and shadow, often reshaping the opening material rather than pushing it through extended dramatic conflict. This balance between elegance and underlying tension gives the movement its distinctive character. The following Largo cantabile e mesto forms the emotional heart of the quartet. Set in the remote key of F-sharp major, it feels strikingly distant from the warm D major of the opening. The music unfolds like a long, contemplative song, serene yet tinged with sorrow. Its spacious pacing and luminous harmonies create an atmosphere of quiet reflection, at once mournful and consoling.

After this profound stillness, the Minuet restores a sense of earthly movement and humor. Though rooted in a courtly dance, Haydn playfully disrupts expectations with sudden dynamic contrasts and rhythmic quirks, while the trio section shifts briefly into a darker minor-key color before returning to the brightness of D major. The Finale begins with an unexpected gesture—short chords and pauses that seem almost like a false ending—before launching into one of Haydn’s most exuberant conclusions. A lively rhythmic figure ripples beneath the melody as the instruments trade energetic exchanges filled with wit, rustic charm, and surprising turns. The movement’s playful spirit and inventive interplay bring the quartet to a jubilant close, reminding listeners of the humor and imagination that made Haydn the acknowledged father of the string quartet.

Dmitri Shostakovich
String Quartet No. 8, Op. 110

Largo
Allegro molto
Allegretto
Largo
Largo

Composed in just three days in July 1960, Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110, stands among the most personal and emotionally charged works in the chamber music repertoire. The composer wrote it while in Dresden, where he had traveled to work on the score for a film about the city’s devastating World War II bombing. The score bears the dedication “to the victims of fascism and war,” but many listeners and scholars have long suspected a deeper autobiographical meaning. Shostakovich had recently been pressured into joining the Soviet Communist Party, a decision that left him profoundly distressed, and he reportedly described the quartet as a kind of musical epitaph. The work is saturated with references to his own music and built around a four-note musical signature—D–E♭–C–B, corresponding to the German spelling of his initials, DSCH—making the quartet feel both like a memorial and a self-portrait.

The quartet unfolds in five movements played without pause, unified by the DSCH motif, which appears almost immediately and returns in countless guises throughout the piece. The opening Largo presents the motif in stark imitation among the four instruments, creating an austere, mournful atmosphere that recalls the solemn counterpoint of earlier centuries. This elegiac mood is violently shattered by the Allegro molto that follows, where the motif becomes the engine of a furious, driving texture. At the movement’s height appears a haunting melody borrowed from Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2, often described as a “Jewish” theme—music that seems to laugh and weep at the same time, embodying the composer’s idea that tragedy and irony can coexist in a single gesture.

The third movement transforms the DSCH motif into a bitter waltz, its uneasy shifting between major and minor giving the dance a ghostly, unstable character. The fourth movement is among the quartet’s most dramatic passages, beginning with harsh, repeated chords that have often been interpreted as gunshots or ominous knocks at the door. A collage of musical quotations follows: fragments from Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, a revolutionary funeral song, and echoes of the Dies irae, all layered into a bleak procession of memories. The final Largo returns to the introspective world of the opening, once again centered on the DSCH motif. Here the music gradually subsides into a quiet, haunting stillness, as if the composer’s musical signature—having traversed violence, irony, and lament—finally dissolves into silence.

Ludwig van Beethoven
String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major, Op. 130 (with Grosse Fuge)

Adagio, ma non troppo – Allegro
Presto
Andante con moto, ma non troppo. Un Poco scherzoso
Alla danza tedesca. Allegro assai
Cavatina. Adagio molto espressivo
Große Fuge (Grande Fugue op.133): Ouverture. Allegro – Meno mosso e moderato – Allegretto – Fuga. – Meno Mosso e moderato – Allegro molto e con brio – Allegro

Completed in 1825 and revised the following year, Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat major, Op. 130, belongs to the extraordinary group of late quartets written during the final years of his life. These works emerged after a long hiatus from quartet composition and were prompted by a commission from the Russian prince and amateur cellist Nikolai Galitzin. Premiered in 1826 by the Schuppanzigh Quartet, Op. 130 quickly gained a reputation for its unusual structure and bold imagination. Unlike the traditional four-movement quartet, Beethoven fashioned a six-movement sequence of contrasting character pieces. Originally the work concluded with the monumental Große Fuge, a vast and fiercely complex fugue that baffled early audiences. After the premiere, performers and publishers persuaded Beethoven to replace it with a lighter finale, publishing the fugue separately as Op. 133. Today, both endings are often performed, but the original fugue remains one of the most daring and challenging creations in all of chamber music.

The opening movement begins with a solemn introduction before launching into a lively Allegro, where sharply contrasted musical ideas alternate between playful energy and reflective lyricism. The music continually shifts between tightly unified gestures and more intricate textures, giving the movement a sense of both propulsion and hesitation. A brief Presto follows—barely more than a musical flash—whose whirlwind pace and abrupt accents make it feel like a mischievous scherzo. The third movement, marked Andante con moto, ma non troppo, begins with gentle, sighing phrases before revealing a lighter, almost playful character as the instruments trade fragments of melody. Beethoven’s fourth movement, Alla danza tedesca, evokes a rustic German dance, its buoyant rhythms and sudden dynamic turns creating the impression of a slightly tipsy village celebration.

At the emotional center of the quartet lies the Cavatina, one of Beethoven’s most intimate and deeply expressive slow movements. The term suggests a simple song, and the music unfolds with a tender, vocal quality, the first violin singing a long, lyrical line while the other instruments support and echo the melody. In the middle of the movement the mood shifts dramatically into a passage marked beklemmt—“oppressed” or “anxious”—where the music seems to falter in halting, breathless phrases before gradually recovering its calm. In the original conception of the quartet, this fragile stillness was shattered by the Große Fuge, a vast and turbulent finale built from a sharply angular theme subjected to relentless contrapuntal exploration. The music surges through violent clashes, sudden pauses, and passages of striking lyricism before driving toward a fierce conclusion. Whether heard with this monumental fugue or Beethoven’s later, lighter finale, Op. 130 remains one of the most imaginative and emotionally wide-ranging works in the entire quartet repertoire.