Concert 6: Contemporary Forever
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Widmann, Ives, and Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge
Axiom Quartet closes Eternally Modern with the work that inspired the season’s central question: Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, which Igor Stravinsky famously called “contemporary forever.”
This final concert asks why Beethoven still matters, not as a monument, but as an active force in musical imagination. Jörg Widmann’s String Quartet No. 6, Study on Beethoven, places a living composer in direct conversation with Beethoven’s quartet legacy. Ives’s Second Quartet turns chamber music into a conversation that refuses to behave: argumentative, funny, volatile, unruly, and unmistakably American.
The season culminates in Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, originally written as the finale to Op. 130 and later published separately. This is Beethoven’s late imagination pushed to its most extreme point: difficult, physical, overwhelming, and transcendent. It is music that moves beyond elegance and politeness toward something still startlingly alive.
The evening includes brief verbal context from the quartet, complimentary wine, and a 15-minute intermission. Business casual attire is suggested. The full concert experience will last approximately 90 minutes.
Join Axiom Quartet on Thursday, June 3 at 7:30 p.m. at Musik Halle at Houston Sängerbund, 1703 Heights Blvd., Houston, TX 77008.
Axiom Quartet closes Eternally Modern with the work that inspired the season’s central question: Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, which Igor Stravinsky famously called “contemporary forever.”
This final concert asks why Beethoven still matters, not as a monument, but as an active force in musical imagination. Jörg Widmann’s String Quartet No. 6, Study on Beethoven, places a living composer in direct conversation with Beethoven’s quartet legacy. Ives’s Second Quartet turns chamber music into a conversation that refuses to behave: argumentative, funny, volatile, unruly, and unmistakably American.
The season culminates in Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, originally written as the finale to Op. 130 and later published separately. This is Beethoven’s late imagination pushed to its most extreme point: difficult, physical, overwhelming, and transcendent. It is music that moves beyond elegance and politeness toward something still startlingly alive.
The evening includes brief verbal context from the quartet, complimentary wine, and a 15-minute intermission. Business casual attire is suggested. The full concert experience will last approximately 90 minutes.
Join Axiom Quartet on Thursday, June 3 at 7:30 p.m. at Musik Halle at Houston Sängerbund, 1703 Heights Blvd., Houston, TX 77008.
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Where is it happening?
1703 Heights Blvd, Houston, TX 77008-4023, United States
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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Host or PublisherAxiom Quartet
