Chaos String Quartet

Chaos – it irritates, threatens, and yet is often the beginning of all creative work. The human relationship to it is contradictory.


The Chaos String Quartet lives up to its name and devotes itself to this ambivalent entity with dedication. It brings structure to apparent chaos – before the Konzerthaus Orchestra performs what is arguably the most famous musical creation story at the end of the festival.

Along the way, the audience encounters musical confusion in artful composition: from Haydn, Rebel, and Ligeti, whose string quartet, according to its own statement, combines "all movements simultaneously."

Intermingled with this web are contrapuntal masterpieces by Bach and Beethoven. Beethoven's "Great Fugue" takes the principle of polyphonic order so far that it confused contemporaries more than it enlightened them. A classic case of chaotic structure?


Program:

• Joseph Haydn – "The Idea of Chaos" from the oratorio "The Creation", Hob. XXI:2
  
• Johann Sebastian Bach – Contrapunctus I from "The Art of Fugue", BWV 1080
  
• Jean-Féry Rebel – "Le Cahos" from "Les Éléments"
  
• György Ligeti – String Quartet No. 2
  
• Interval
  
• Jean-Philippe Rameau – Overture to the opera "Zaïs"
  
• Johann Sebastian Bach – Contrapunctus II from "The Art of Fugue", BWV 1080
  
• Alfred Schnittke – First Movement (Andante) from String Quartet No. 3
  
• Ludwig van Beethoven – Great Fugue in B-flat major, Op. 133