Braga é Natal

At the invitation of the Associação Musical Sinfonietta de Braga, the Quarteto Euterpe performed on 5 December 2021 at the Salão Medieval of the University of Minho, as part of the Braga é Natal programme. The Salão Medieval, one of the most emblematic spaces in the historic centre of Braga, provided a particular acoustics and atmosphere well suited to the repertoire chosen for the occasion.

The programme brought together three works that, despite belonging to distinct historical moments, share an intense relationship with expressivity and emotional weight in string quartet writing. Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 18 No. 4 and Mendelssohn’s Quartet Op. 13 No. 2 — a work marked by unusual expressive intensity and a deep dialogue with Beethovenian language — framed Anton Webern’s Langsamer Satz, a youthful piece written in 1909 that already anticipates the composer’s sensitivity towards the dissolution of tonality, while remaining within a lyrical and emotionally dense language. Its inclusion in the programme revealed a quartet willing to explore the boundaries of the classical-romantic repertoire without abandoning them.