When David Harrington (artistic director of the famous Kronos Quartet) listened a recording of H. M. Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 he had got from his friend working for a New York recording company, he called him saying that Górecki had to write a piece for Kronos!. Such was the beginning of Górecki’s long-standing collaboration with the Kronos, resulting in three string quartets. On 5 March you will hear Górecki’s String Quartet No. 1. 

In the programme to be played by the Lutosławski Quartet and made up of quartets there is one rondo, though. Originally Anton Webern had also planned a quartet, but he did not go beyond this only movement in the end.  We associate the Vienna-based composer with avant garde and the 20th-century revolution in music, but actually Rondo is one of Webern’s few traditionally composed pieces. Its main theme is the elegant Viennese waltz.