16/4: Charity Concert – Adolescere Partnership

In December 2025, the Quarteto Euterpe performed at the Auditorium of the Museu de Arqueologia D. Diogo de Sousa in Braga, in a concert marking the conclusion of the 16/4 mentoring programme, an initiative of the Quarteto de Matosinhos dedicated to the development of young Portuguese string quartets. The concert was held in partnership with the Associação Adolescere and drew a near-capacity audience.

The programme brought together two pillars of the Romantic string quartet repertoire. Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 18 No. 4, one of the composer’s early works already hinting at the constructive mastery that would define his entire quartet output, was paired with three of Mendelssohn’s Four Pieces for String Quartet Op. 81 — the Tema con Variazioni, the Scherzo and the Capriccio. Written at different points in the composer’s life and published posthumously, these pieces reveal complementary different facets of Mendelssohn’s language: the lyrical elegance of the variations, the near-ethereal lightness of the scherzo, and the improvisatory, expressive character of the capriccio.