Christmas Concert

As part of the Famalicão: O Lugar do Natal programme, the Quarteto Euterpe performed at the Igreja Matriz Antiga in Vila Nova de Famalicão on 13 December 2025, in a concert combining two distinct registers of string quartet writing. The programme opened with three of Mendelssohn’s Four Pieces for String Quartet Op. 81 — the Tema con Variazioni, the Scherzo and the Capriccio — late works that distil the full sophistication of the composer’s harmonic and timbral language into concentrated, intimate forms. This was followed by Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 18 No. 4, an early work documenting the moment at which Beethoven absorbed and began to transcend the models of Haydn and Mozart, already asserting a voice distinctly his own. The acoustics of the Igreja Matriz Antiga, a landmark space in the historic centre of Famalicão, gave the concert a particular sonic dimension inseparable from the character of the space itself.