Quartetto Prometeo: Beethoven and Arcana

Giulio Rovighi, violin
Aldo Campagnari, violin
Danusha Waskiewicz, viola
Francesco Dillon, cello

A fresh approach to Beethoven and the Baroque: in this new concert, the Quartetto Prometeo—a vibrant group of young musicians—presents inventive transcriptions by some of Italy’s best-known living composers.

The quartet’s cellist, Francesco Dillon, performs these works on a 1682 Stradivarius from the Musical Instrument Museum in the Accademia Musicale Chigiana; the Museum is housed in the 14th-century Palazzo Chigi-Saracini in Siena, which is where this concert was recorded.

At the midpoint of the concert is Beethoven’s visionary masterpiece, the Op. 95 Serioso; the transcriptions before and after it in the program offer new ways to hear these pieces:

Johann Sebastian Bach: “Contrapunctus 1” from Die Kunst der Fugue BWV 1080
Salvatore Sciarrino (after Domenico Scarlatti): “Allegrissimo” (da Sonata in Re minore K.120) from L’esercizio della stravaganza
Ivan Fedele (after Gesualdo da Venosa): “…qui transitis per viam”
György Kurtag: “Secreta” Funeral Music in memoriam László Dobszay
Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet Op. 95 in F minor “Serioso”
György Kurtag: “Aus der Ferne V” – Alfred Schlee in memoriam (1999)
Francesco Filidei (after Giovanni Maria Trabaci): “Consonanze Stravaganti”
Francesco Filidei (after Tarquinio Merula): “Ciaccona”
Stefano Scodanibbio (after Johann Sebastian Bach): “Contrapunctus 1 – Reinvention”