Arts at Tenri presents

Borromeo String Quartet

March 7, 2008, 8:00pm

ARTS AT TENRI will continue its 2007-2008 season with a performance by the critically acclaimed Borromeo String Quartet, recent winners of a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. The Borromeo's will center around Beethoven in a program which contrasts the composers youthful innocence with the intense reflection of his last two years. Beethoven's Op. 18 #3 is the first string quartet he wrote and carries with it the radiant sunshine of his musical youth. The Grosse Fugue is perhaps Beethoven's most advanced work, a work the composer himself was intensely proud of, and a work which he summed up with rapture the end of his life and the ultimate possibilities of his musical craftsmanship. These two contrasting works will be presented along with Dmitri Shostakovich's 12th String Quartet which, like Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, was written during the composers last creative period in 1968, when he was run down by advancing ill-health and countless visits to the hospital, but still discovering new ways to forward his music. This work is an undeniable triumph against the odds.

Adam Baer of the New York Sun, said that "This group's intimate Tenri concerts have become one of New York's best kept musical secrets" and indeed it is the Borromeo's favorite performance space in Manhattan because of its intimacy, informality, and audience vibe.

Program (in performance order)
Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 18, No. 3
Shostakovich String Quartet No. 12
Beethoven "Grosse Fuge" Op. 133

The Place
Tenri Cultural Institute
43A West 13th Street, New York, NY
(212) 645-2800

Tickets
$20 general, $12 students/seniors. At the door: $25 general, $15 students/seniors