Spurred on by the creation of Alfred Bruneau’s Romance for clarinet quartet and by the creation of the Malinconia programme, the Quartet continues its quest for history and roots. By drawing on the classical scores of the string quartet, the Quatuor Anches Hantées continues its immersion in the great repertoire of chamber music and explores the possibilities of its formation.
Now equipped with a basset-horn, an instrument favoured by Mozart, the QAH is working on its sound palette to open it up to more intimate, more chamber music colours. In this opus, the QAH takes its inspiration from Beethoven, who in his quartets not only assumed the important heritage of Haydn and Mozart, but also knew how to make an inventory of the means he had acquired with a view to constantly surpassing them, to the point of completely revolutionising writing for four instruments and projecting it to the very edge of the 20th century.
The Quartet opus 18 n°1, the longest and most brilliant of the six quartets dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz, will be at the centre of this programme which, like Malinconia, will be offered on disc in 2023.
The Quartet will also take on the only string quartet composed by Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn, sister of Felix Mendelssohn. Echoing the avant-gardism of the composer, one of the greatest of the 19th century, the Quartet works for innovation. The tool of transcription, in addition to serving to establish a new formation, must give rise to original composition.
Between the two string quartets, an original creation by Laurent Lefrançois, composer in residence at the Ma Vigne en Musique Festival, will be performed.