Artist unknown. 19th Century Society, Hunt of the Zorro, the Moment of the Chase, 1854, engraving. Photo credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
Artist unknown. 19th Century Society, Hunt of the Zorro, the Moment of the Chase, 1854, engraving. Photo credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
The thrill of the hunt has prompted composers throughout Western music history to create some of their most rousing works. Breathless, galloping tempi and proud melodies evocative of horn calls appear in works ranging from Haydn’s First String Quartet and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quartet in B-flat Major, K. 458 (one of the six dedicated to Haydn), to Johannes Brahms’s Third String Quartet, a work that reveals the composer at the height of his powers. Concert Program IV follows the hunt into the twenty-first century with Jörg Widmann’s delightfully macabre Jagdquartett.