Classical Music - Vogler Quartet

The last concert in the Nicholas Yonge Society 2006/7 season, features Berlin’s Vogler Quartet, who will be playing string quartets from two of the 19th century’s most famous sons, and two important figures in 20th century classical music. Schubert and Schumann, of course, need no introduction. “But we always like to have an interesting mixture in our concerts, and so we will be hearing pieces by 20th century Austrian composers Alban Berg and Anton Webern,” says the NYS’s Director of Concerts, Michael Marwood. The two Austrians were friends and contemporaries, both students of Schoenberg, both proponents of twelve-note composition, whereby pieces avoid being in a certain key by having all twelve notes played an equal number of times. Berg was recently named by contemporary composer George Perle as ‘the 20th century’s most forward-looking composer’. Both Austrians met untimely deaths which robbed the world of their mature period: Berg died in 1935 after being bitten by an insect, Webern was shot by an American soldier in 1945 after his son-in-law had been accused of black marketeering.

The Vogler Quartet, who have been playing professionally since 1985, are known as one of the world’s leading string quartets, and are adept at playing a wide range of styles, ranging from the 18th century classics to more modern pieces. During the MusiKBiennale in Berlin in 1999, for example, they played Morton Feldman’s 2nd String Quartet in its entirety - quite a feat as it lasts five hours. AG