Brentano String Quartet

This concert is sponsored by Bob & Marion Pollack.

We open Princeton University Concerts’ 133rd Concert Classics Series with a dream come true: the beloved Brentano String Quartet, returning to their former home stage (1999–2014) for an evening of quiet wonder. Haydn’s “The Dream” flits between wit and reverie; Josef Suk’s Meditation on an Old Czech Hymn draws on a melody centuries old, transforming a prayer for protection into music of profound warmth and hope; Pēteris Vasks’s Meditation from his Fourth Quartet (2000) offers a searching reflection on our modern world at the dawn of the 21st century; and Beethoven’s Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59, No. 2 closes with a slow movement that gazes, rapt and awestruck, at the starry firmament—inviting us to do the same as we begin another season of music together.