Calidore String Quartet

The Calidore String Quartet continues its year-long residency at Caramoor with a program that recalls a period in time that transformed the world. The quartet writes:

One hundred years ago the “Great War” consumed Europe. World War I had a profound impact on all forms of art, especially music, and this program explores how composers expressed themselves amidst mass devastation. Darius Milhaud’s Fourth String Quartet brings the audience to a simpler time, incorporating popular tunes in a simple and clear texture. In contrast, Bela Bartok’s Second Quartet contains beginnings of Bartok’s revolutionary tonal language, as he explores rustic Eastern European folk idioms while reacting to the desolation of the war. This program also includes Ravel’s masterwork, his Quartet in F major, though it predates the war era. Ravel contributed to the war effort as a truck driver on the Verdun Front. The elegance of this quartet captures and exalts a national style, yet it was this same nationalistic fervor that sparked the “Great War.”

One extremely promising string quartet is chosen each year to complete a year-long residency at Caramoor. The quartet-in-residence lends their time and talents to Caramoor’s Student Strings program in the secondary schools with a classroom-based program of concerts, conversations, and performance clinics. The Ernst Stiefel Quartet-in-Residence performs at Caramoor throughout their residency, enabling the public to experience these exciting, young players in an intimate setting.  The Calidore Quartet is the 15th Ernst Stiefel Quartet-in-Residence at Caramoor.  They will be visiting schools in the fall and spring and performing concerts at Caramoor in the fall, spring, and summer.

Program:

Milhaud / Quartet No. 4, Op. 46
Bartók / Quartet No. 2, Op. 17
Intermission
Ravel / Quartet in F Major