International debut · International Mendelssohn Festival

At the invitation of the International Mendelssohn Festival, the Quarteto Euterpe made its international debut on 19 September 2021 at the Barlach Haus museum in Hamburg — one of the city’s most distinctive cultural spaces, dedicated to the work of expressionist sculptor Ernst Barlach. The concert formed part of the festival’s official programme, which annually celebrates the legacy of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in the city where the composer lived and worked.

The programme brought together three works of distinct periods and languages. Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 18 No. 4 and Mendelssohn’s Quartet Op. 13 No. 2 — a youthful work marked by an expressive intensity unusual for its time and by a deep engagement with Beethoven’s music — framed a third piece of a different nature: the arrangement of Verdes Anos by Carlos Paredes, in the string quartet version by the Kronos Quartet. The inclusion of this work in a festival programme in Hamburg was a deliberate statement of the quartet’s Portuguese identity in an international context.