This April, the Apollon Musagète Quartett will present an extraordinary programme in the most prestigious concert halls in Europe: Wigmore Hall in London, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie. The fantastic acoustics of Flagey will add one final glorious touch to their performance when they stop in Belgium on 24 April 2017.

Here’s what’s on the programme: PUCCINI, ARENSKY, SIBELIUS and GRIEG, four composers who wrote very little chamber music but nonetheless left their distinctive mark of genius on the landscape. So you’re in for a treat with the pieces which the internationally-renowned quartet has chosen to play. And what’s more, they have chosen to juxtapose the expressiveness of the pieces: from the funereal, sombre and expressive music of Giacomo Puccini (Crisantemi, a piece of work composed in a single night, in reaction to news of the death of the Duke of Savoy) we move on to the Nordic music found in the one and only string quartet to be written by Edvard Grieg (String quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 27 – find out more HERE), and the work of the rarely-performed Anton Arensky (String quartet No. 2 in A Minor) will precede Andante Festivo by Jean Sibelius, a piece originally composed as a string quartet, but often played with an orchestra and kettledrums.  
An exciting evening is in store – don’t miss it!  

PROGRAMME
Giacomo Puccini, Crisantemi in C-sharp minor
Anton Arensky, String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35
Jean Sibelius, Andante festivo 
Edvard Grieg, String Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 27

PRACTICAL INFORMATION
>>> Flagey, Studio 4 (Place Sainte-Croix, 1050 Brussels) – see map
>>> Monday 24 April 2016 – 20:15 
>>> €21 > €18
+++ online boxoffice
+++ on the website of Flagey

Apollon Musagete Quartett 
The Apollon Musagete Quartet was founded in Vienna in 2006 by four Poles: Paweł Zalejski (violin), Bartosz Zachłod (violin), Piotr Szumiel (viola) and Piotr Skweres (cello). 
The group’s unusual name is an homage to a ballet by Igor Stravinsky dating from 1927/28 in which the god Apollon dances with three muses who symbolise, in turn, poetry, rhetoric and dance. Taking their cue from this god and ‘conductor of muses’, the Apollon Musagete Quartet aims to bring together all art forms.  
In 2008, the group’s reputation was enhanced by the award of a first prize and three special prizes at the Munich ARD International Music Competition. This prize was yet another to add to an already impressive trophy cabinet, containing prizes won primarily in Austria and Italy, where they performed to great success. The group also played at London’s Wigmore Hall and the Berlin Philharmonic Hall.
The group finds its musical inspiration not just in the works which it plays, but also in the many collaborators with whom it so enjoys playing. The musicians with whom the group has played to date include: Peter Cropper, Anner Bylsma, Giulano Carmignola and  Ferenz Rados.
In Poland, the quartet has been aided by the award of a grant from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
The first disc by the Apollon Musagete Quartet was released by OEHMS Classics in 2009. It includes works by Haydn, Szymanowski and Brahms.
The Appolon Musagète Quartet has been given the honour of launching the WITOLD LUTOSŁAWSKI YEAR 2013 in Belgium with a performance of the Polish composer’s String quartet (this year marks one hundred years since Lutosławski’s birth). As DeSingel points out, listening to Lutosławski’s String quartet is “an extraordinary experience, if only because the music is never the same from one version to the next. Indeed, Lutoslawski grants musicians such a degree of freedom in how they play the notes that the balance between the four instruments is different each time”. Lending a special personal note to their tribute, the Apollon Musagète Quartet has composed an original piece with the eloquent title Multitude in memoriam W. Lutoslawski.
+++ www.apollon-musagete.com