By Chip Chandler — Digital Content Producer
Harrington String Quartet will kick off its Kaleidoscope: Timeless Masterpieces season Friday.
The season will open at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Mary Moody Northen Recital Hall at West Texas A&M University with a concert featuring Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's String Quartet K. 589. Fritz Kreisler's String Quartet in A Minor and Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet Opus 59, No. 1.
Kreisler's name is certainly the least recognizable of that trio, and while he was renowned as a performer and composer, his string quartet is lesser known.
"He was a very famous violinist, one of the greatest violinists of the first half of the 20th century," cellist Emmanuel Lopez said when previewing the season this summer. "He also was the composer of many violin pieces which violinists still play today ... but (he's) not really associated with string quartets, and this is the only one he wrote.
"We felt this work, since it has never been played here to my knowledge by the Harrington quartet, was a wonderful way to introduce the first program," Lopez said.
Like the other two subscription concerts to come this season, the concert features works never or rarely performed by HSQ.
"We wanted to do works that had not been done by (the quartet) in a long time — if ever," Lopez said. "That moment when we decided what to do next year (was) great. We're looking at things we never thought we would look at together. (The season) consolidated very quickly. It's very reassuring to me."
The quartet also includes violinists Rossitza Goza and Evgeny Zvonnikov, plus violist Vesselin Todorov. All four teach at WT in addition to performing.
Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for seniors.
Call 806-651-2840.
Chip Chandler is a digital content producer for Panhandle PBS. He can be contacted at Chip.Chandler@actx.edu, at @chipchandler1 on Twitter and on Facebook.
