GEORG FRIEDRICH HAAS String Quartet No. 5
MICHAËL LEVINAS String Quartet No. 3
JAN KAVAN Festival Commission
KAIJA SAARIAHO Nymphéa for string quartet and electronics
FRANCK BEDROSSIAN Tracés d’ombres for string quartet
GIACINTO SCELSI String Quartet No. 4

Fama Q String Quartet
David Danel violin
Roman Hranička violin
Ondřej Martinovský viola
Balázs Adorján cello

This programme presents works by several generations of composers who share a deep interest in timbre as a vehicle of musical thought. The point of departure here is the music of Giacinto Scelsi, whose focus on the inner structure and continual transformation of a single tone anticipated many of the principles later developed in spectral music. Alongside Scelsi, the concert features pieces by Jonathan Harvey and Kaija Saariaho, as well as works by today’s postspectral pioneers, such as Georg Friedrich Haas and Franck Bedrossian, whose musique saturée aesthetic pushes spectral concepts to extremes of sonic density and intensity. The string quartet appears here as an exceptionally sensitive medium for revealing subtle transformations within sound. In some of the works featured, its possibilities are expanded further by means of electronics and spatialisation.