Villiers Quartet: Haydn, Mendelssohn & Dvořák

Journeys
Haydn - Quartet in D Major, Op.20, No 4
Mendelssohn - Quartet in A minor, op. 13
interval
Dvořák - Quartet in A-flat Major, Op. 105

The Villiers Quartet explore the journey of string quartets with three classics from the quartet repertoire. In 1772, Haydn wrote his set of Op. 20 works, creating the ground-breaking medium of string quartet in classical music. Mendelssohn’s youthful Op. 13, written when he was 18 years old, continued the tradition in homage to Beethoven, whose quartets he studied intensely. Dvořák began writing his Quartet in A-flat Major, Op. 105 while he was still living in New York as director of the National Conservatory of Music. He completed it after returning to his beloved Prague in 1895. This is the last quartet Dvořák wrote, bringing to completion his monumental cycle of 15 string quartets.