Founded in 2006, the Apollon Musagète Quartett is one of the most recognizable Polish chamber ensembles. During the concert at the National Forum of Music, the artists will perform two Romantic masterpieces, both belonging to popular and often performed compositions for a string quartet and written in the same key of D minor.

Although the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák is best known for his symphonies, symphonic poems and instrumental concertos, he was also the author of excellent works for much smaller ensembles. Among other things, he wrote fourteen string quartets. The ninth of them was completed in December 1877. The composer dedicated it to Johannes Brahms, who supported and helped him in the early stages of his career. The dark character of the Quartet No. 9 in D minor was influenced by the tragedies that befell the composer in a short time. In August of the same year, his daughter, only ten months old, died, and in September, his three-and-a-half-year-old son passed away. These events left their mark on the work written in the same year.

The String Quartet No. 14 in D minor D 810 “Death and the Maiden” by Franz Schubert is one of the most famous chamber works created in the Romantic era. The subtitle indicates a quote from the composer’s song written to the words by Matthias Claudius. It appears in the second movement of the quartet, the lyrical and melodious Andante con moto. However, the calm prevailing in this part can only be compared to the proverbial eye of the cyclone. It is surrounded by movements of great emotional intensity, dark, violent, often predatory music. This applies both to the first movement, which opens with a dramatic, declamatory motif sounding like a question, as well as to the rhythmic Scherzo and the final Presto. The last movements is a stylization of the tarantella – an Italian dance, according to beliefs, danced after a tarantula bite, the venom of which was supposed to cause madness and convulsions. With Schubert, ominous dance full of wild abandon takes on the features of a danse macabre.