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Details
Kunstverein Braunschweig - Villa Salve Hospes
Lessingplatz 12
Braunschweig
38100
Germany
Programme
Fanny Hensel – String Quartet E flat major
Leoš Janáček – String Quartet no.2 'Intimate Letters'
~ Interval ~
Cecilia Damström – String Quartet no.2 'Letters', Op.61
Felix Mendelssohn – String Quartet no.6 in F minor, Op.80
Performers
Iris Günther – violin
Leonie Flaksman – violin
Francesca Rivinius – viola
Karolin Spegg – Violoncello
Elaia Quartett
Other concerts in this Series (+)
Programme Note
In past centuries, composers have not only used pen and ink to write down sheet music, but letters were the predominant means of communication with people close to them. Whether humorous travelogues between Wolfgang and Leopold Mozart, love letters between Clara and Robert Schumann or Beethoven's letter to his "immortal beloved", letters provide us today with an incredibly valuable and authentic insight into the lives of composers.
Letters also played an important role for Leoš Janáček. A year before his death, he dedicated his 2nd string quartet to his distant lover, who was 40 years his junior, and entitled it "Intimate Letters", originally "Love Letters". 100 years later, Cecilia Damström's "Letters" was written as a commentary on this same string quartet.
These two works are framed by the siblings Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, whose correspondence is one of the most famous in the world of musicians and composers. In their letters, for example, the two discuss Fanny's difficult position as a composing woman or exchange opinions and criticism on their latest compositions, as well as Fanny's (only) string quartet in E flat major. Shortly after her unexpected death, which threw Felix completely off course, he composed his last work, the String Quartet No. 6 in F minor - his "farewell letter" to his beloved sister.
