Book Tickets

Bach The Art of Fugue, Contrapunctus 1-4, BWV 1080
Mendelssohn Capriccio and Fugue for String Quartet, Op. 81 No. 3
Beethoven String Quartet in B flat major, Op. 133, ‘Grosse Fuge’
Beethoven String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132

Takács Quartet

The legendary Takács Quartet comes to Oxford for an examination of Beethoven’s quartet writing, its influences and its consequences. The String Quartet No. 15 and ‘Grosse Fuge’ contain some of Beethoven’s most astonishing music for four stringed instruments, including the otherworldly sonority of the ‘holy song of thanks’ featured in the former and the modern-sounding music bordering on chaotic found in the latter. To aid our understanding of this sometimes inscrutable music, we hear Bach’s precursor to Beethoven’s fugue and Mendelssohn’s coming-to-terms with his predecessor’s contrapuntal genius.