Philharmonics play chamber Beethoven | Ravel | Szymanowski

String quartets – probably the most classic makeup, quintessence (or maybe “quartossence”) of chamber music, as a selection of just four string instruments: two violins, a viola and cello, on one hand treated as a training composition for adepts of composition. On the other hand, it allowed composers through the ages – from classicism to contemporary music – to create the most groundbreaking works in the history of music.

Karłowicz Quartet, which was created by instrumentalists of the Philharmonic in Szczecin, Elżbieta Fabiszak (I violin), Karolina Hyla (II violin), Magdalena Micke (viola) and Klara Świdrów (cello), will perform three compositions, presenting transformations of this genre from the end of the 18th to the beginning the 20th century.

The experience of the predecessors, classical music masters of the quartets – Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, can be heard in the Quartet in F major, Op. 18 No. 1 by Ludwig van Beethoven, written around 1798 for Prince Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowitz. This work, the first of a series of six quartets, belongs to the early works of the Viennese composer, who at the end of his life revolutionized the genre of the quartet.
A relatively classical four-movement structure is also exhibited by Maurice Ravel's String Quartet in F major from 1903, with the sonata form in the first movement and a very slow third. The most characteristic part of the composition remains the second "guitar" movement, based almost entirely on pizzicato articulation.

Completed in 1927, the String Quartet No. 2 Op. 56 by Karol Szymanowski is one of the most daring sharp and raw sound works by this artist. In a three movement composition, with a scherzo in the middle movement and with a fugue in the final, alongside typical impressionistic harmony there are inspirations from Podhale music, including, among others, "Sabałowa melodia", which also appears in the bandit dance in the ballet "Harnasie".