Signum Quartet Returns To Princeton For Performance At Trinity Church
The performance is on Thursday, May 1.
The internationally known ensemble Signum Quartet will return to Princeton on Thursday, May 1 at 7pm to perform on the Princeton Symphony Orchestra (PSO)'s new chamber music series at Trinity Church. The Signum Quartet consists of violinists Florian Donderer and Annette Walther, violist Xandi van Dijk, and cellist Thomas Schmitz. On the program are Franz Joseph Haydn's String Quartet in C Major, Op. 33 No. 3, “The Bird,” Vítězslava Kaprálová's String Quartet, Op. 8, and Antonín Dvořák's String Quartet No. 13 in G Major, Op. 106.
Performances of unsparing expressivity, intimacy, and vitality are hallmarks of the Signum Quartet, pairing music of the subtlest order with playing of the highest intensity. The Quartet began their 2024-25 season with performances across Germany, Switzerland, and Spain. They also toured South Africa combining programs featuring select works by Haydn, Schumann, and Brahms with an original presentation highlighting current South African composers and musicians in honor of the 30th anniversary of the fall of apartheid. In 2021, the ensemble made its debut at Carnegie Hall in New York and at the Library of Congress in 2023. This spring, they return to the United States as a featured guest artist at the Salt Lake City Chamber Music Society and Princeton Symphony Orchestra's Chamber Series at Trinity. They will make their Chinese debut in Chengdu, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. The recent recording of their Schubert cycle, Lebensmuth, received an Opus Klassik Award in 2024.
Haydn's string quartet opens with repeated notes in the melody with grace notes sounding like the call of a bird. Composed in 1935-36, Kaprálová's quartet is characterized by the powerful rhythms and Czech folk melody influences of her homeland. Although Dvořák was also a native of that country, his string Quartet No. 13 was written following his American sojourn in 1895.
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