One of the world’s premiere string quartets, the Emerson String Quartet, teams up with opera megastar Renée Fleming for Penelope, a new work by Andre Previn, with text by Tom Stoppard. The “opera of sorts” was premiered earlier this summer to kick off Previn’s 90th birthday celebration.
Celebrating the season theme of “Being American,” the Emerson will play Barber’s String Quartet No. 1. Its slow movement—the perfectly crafted and powerfully moving Adagio for Strings—is one of the most beloved of all American compositions. Barber himself called it a “knockout.”
You’ll hear another luminous slow movement in the evening’s opening work, Haydn’s Quartet No. 2, Opus 71. The composer’s fame after his success in London called for richer sonorities for large public performances in Vienna. This piece beautifully fit the bill.
