Event Details
ACMC 30th Annual Summer Festival: Ariel Quartet
Some concerts entertain. This one moves through you.
The internationally acclaimed Ariel Quartet — Alexandra Kazovsky and Gershon Gerchikov, violins; Jan Gruning, viola; Amit Even-Tov, cello — brings one of the most emotionally demanding programs of the entire Festival. Three works. Three completely different worlds. One shattering evening.
The concert opens with Mendelssohn's String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80 — his final quartet, written in the white heat of grief following his sister's sudden death. It is raw, restless, and unlike anything else he ever wrote. Then comes Alban Berg's String Quartet, Op. 3: a pivotal work of the early 20th century, pushing tonality to its breaking point with an intensity that still sounds radical today.
And then Beethoven's Op. 132.
Written in the last years of his life, deaf and isolated, the Op. 132 is among the most personal and transcendent things any composer has ever committed to paper. Its central slow movement — marked Heiliger Dankgesang, a holy song of thanksgiving — is one of those rare moments in music that feels like it exists outside of time.
The Ariel Quartet are known for performances that are fierce, committed, and alive to every emotional current in the music. For a program like this, that's exactly what it demands.