Legendary Austrian string quartet makes highly-anticipated Union debut

Publication Date

The Hagen String Quartet performs on Sunday, February 26 at 3:00 p.m. in Memorial Chapel.

The series welcomes the celebrated Hagen String Quartet, which tours the United States infrequently, for its highly-anticipated series debut. The Quartet performs Beethoven’s Quartet in G Major, Op. 18, No. 2, Bartók’s Quartet No. 3, and Dvořák’s Quartet in A-flat Major, Op. 105.

The unprecedented three-decade career of the Hagen Quartet began in 1981. Its early years, marked by a series of prizes in chamber music competitions and an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon that was to produce around forty-five CDs over the following twenty years, enabled the group to work its way through the virtually unlimited quartet repertoire from which the distinctive profile of the Hagens has emerged.

Collaborations with artists such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt and György Kurtág are as important to the Hagen Quartet as its concert appearances with performers including Maurizio Pollini, Mitsuko Uchida, Sabine Meyer, Krystian Zimerman, Heinrich Schiff and Jörg Widmann. The Hagen Quartet also works closely with composers of its own generation, whether by reviving existing works or by commissioning and premiering new pieces. As teachers and mentors at the Salzburg Mozarteum and the Hochschule in Basel, as well as in international master classes, the quartet’s members pass on their wealth of experience to their younger colleagues.

Individual tickets are $30. All students are free. For information, call (518) 388-6080 or visit http://www.unioncollegeconcerts.org.