When the Leipzig String Quartet was founded in 1988, three of its members were still active in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. In their program, the artists, who today are mainly active as chamber musicians, trace famous personalities of their equally famous orchestra. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and the Dane Niels Wilhelm Gade once stood at the conductor's podium there. Even before Gade's time in Leipzig, he composed his string quartet in F major Willkommen und Abschied (Welcome and Farewell) in 1839/40, which, with its passionate, stormy musical language, makes no secret of its reference to the Goethe poem of the same name. Mendelssohn, himself a creator of masterfully crafted string quartet movements, acted as Gade's mentor and also put in a good word for his Swiss colleague Joachim Raff at the Leipzig music publisher Breitkopf. The latter's first string quartet, op. 192/2, pays tribute to a great composer who celebrates his 200th birthday this year. Birthday celebrates and which is to be rediscovered.

Concert duration about 2 hours
Artist talk after the intermission