This subscription option features Saturday dates.
Smithsonian Chamber Music Society audiences are privy to the unparalleled experience of being able to hear two magnificent quartets of instruments—one made by Antonio Stradivari, the other by his teacher Nicolo Amati—in this popular three-concert series. This concert series is also offered on Sunday dates.
One hour prior to each program Kenneth Slowik, SCMS artistic director, continues his popular pre-concert lectures, shedding light on the lives and times of the featured composers and their glorious music.
To celebrate their return to the new Music Hall in the American History Museum during the course of the season, the Axelrod String Quartet has chosen to go back to its roots and present three programs of Viennese works. Each concert will begin with one of Joseph Haydn's Op. 76 quartets, followed by one of the six quartets Mozart dedicated to Haydn. The works chosen for the after-intermission slots reflect some of the many ways in which later-19th-century composers expanded on the broad and solid foundations established by Haydn and Mozart. The October concert offers the pithiest of Beethoven's 16 quartets—the self-consciously introspective Quartetto serioso. In January, the Axelrod members invite two advanced students to join them for the second of the two Brahms sextets, mixing the voices of Stradivarius and Amati instruments to create an unsurpassed sonic experience. For the final concert pair, the Quartet has chosen Alexander Zemlinsky's voluptuously romantic A Major String Quartet of 1896.
To learn more about the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society, click here.
CONCERT SCHEDULE
Sat., Oct. 11
Haydn: Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 4 (the “Sunrise”)
Mozart: Quartet in G Major, K387
Beethoven: Quartetto serioso in F Minor, Op. 95
Location: Warner Bros. Theater, American History Museum
Sat., Jan. 31
Haydn: Quartet in D Minor, Op. 76, No. 2, (the “Quinten”)
Mozart: Quartet in A Major, K464
Brahms: Sextet in G Major, Op. 36
with Leah Gastler, viola, and Arnie Tanimoto, violoncello
Location: Warner Bros. Theater, American History Museum
Sat., March 7
Haydn: Quartet in C Major, Op. 76, No. 3, (the “Emperor”)
Mozart: Quartet in D Minor, K421/417b
Zemlinsky: Quartet No. 1 in A Major, Op. 4
Location: Warner Bros. Theater, American History Museum
Saturday Series (3 concerts): CODE: BPN9
Program, location, and artists are subject to change.
