The Dante Quartet – Haydn, Beethoven, Simpson, Weir

About The Dante Quartet – Haydn, Beethoven, Simpson, Weir

To celebrate Judith Weir’s 70th birthday this year, we are pleased to present her lyrical quartet, composed in 1990.

Based on medieval Spanish songs and a ballad from Banffshire, it shares an impassioned intensity with Beethoven’s last major work. The first half is less psychological and more astronomical: Haydn’s magical conjuring of dawn anticipates Simpson’s musical depiction of the forming of the universe, both exploiting the gravitational pull of tonality to create and release tension, to propel and retard motion.

Joseph Haydn: Quartet Op 76 No 4, “Sunrise”;
Robert Simpson: Quartet No.7;
Judith Weir: Quartet (1990)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Quartet No. 16, Op. 135