St. Florian Bruckner Festival: Chamber concert

Quartet evening.

Varga Quartet

Pavol Varga, violin I

Katharina Veselská, violin II

Peter Zwiebel, viola

Stefanie Huber, cello I

Florian Eggner, cello II

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): String Quartet in E minor op. 59/2 ("Rasumovsky Quartet")

Franz Xaver Müller (1870-1948): Quartettino in D major

Franz Schubert (1797-1828): String Quintet in C major D 956

The young Varga Quartet is one of Vienna's leading string quartets. Together with the Florian cellist Florian Eggner, we will hear Franz Schubert's greatest chamber music composition as the main work of the evening: his String Quintet in C major. This work was largely composed in September 1828, two months before Schubert's death. It is the counterpart to Bruckner's F major String Quintet and represents a key work within 19th century chamber music. It combines Schubert's typical songfulness, tragic depth, gripping drama and dance-like joy. The programme begins with Beethoven's E minor Quartet from 1806, one of the three quartets commissioned by the Russian diplomat and Beethoven patron Andrei Rasumovsky. In between, we will hear a work by Franz Xaver Müller, Augustinian canon and rector of St Florian's Abbey. His Quartettino in D major was composed in 1928 and is dedicated to Karl Aigner (1863-1935), who also worked at the monastery as a monastery musician, copyist and assistant to Bruckner.