The Berlin Staatskapelle String Quartet and Elisabeth Leonskaja perform Brahms and Schubert

The renowned Berlin Staatskapelle String Quartet joins piano legend Elisabeth Leonskaja for a sublime Brahms-centric chamber music evening at the 2024 Festival de Granada, just steps away from the Alhambra! They begin with Brahms's turbulent "Werther" Quartet No. 3 in C minor, begun in 1856 during Robert Schumann's final illess and finished two decades later in 1874. Brahms referenced Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther — wherein the title character, like Brahms, falls in love with a married woman whose husband he greatly admires — and included his famous "C-L-A-R-A" theme in the violin. After the single movement of Schubert's String Quartet No. 12 — never finished but published posthumously thanks to the efforts of Brahms — Leonskaja and the Quartet conclude with Brahms's monumental Piano Quintet in F minor, which legendary conductor Hermann Levi, upon receiving its revised score from the composer, called "beautiful beyond words … a masterpiece of chamber music."