‘Kuss Quartet’

This fascinating programme from the Kuss Quartet takes death and the Passion as its theme. Haydn originally wrote The Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross for orchestra, before subsequently creating an oratorio version and another for string quartet. Kurtág composed his Officium Breve, dedicated to the memory of the Hungarian composer Endre Szervánszky, in 1989. Arcadiana (1994) by Thomas Adès evokes lost idylls, while Harrison Birtwistle's Pulse Shadows (1996) is a series of meditations on poems by Paul Celan. After the interval, we will hear Schubert's most celebrated quartet, "Death and the Maiden".