The Borromeo Quartet

The Borromeo Quartet makes its appearance at Electric Earth for the fifth year in a row, offering masterpieces of the baroque, classical, and modern eras, including several preludes and fugues by J. S. Bach transcribed by violinist Nicholas Kitchen. The Borromeo is known for unconventional programs that are both satisfying and stimulating; in this case, Mr. Kitchen’s fondness for Bach’s contrapuntal majesty has led him to bring several keyboard works to life for the concert’s opening “set.”

Following the Bach pieces is György Ligeti’s first string quartet, written in the years following the death of Ligeti’s countryman Béla Bartók, and now acknowledged to be a twentieth-century masterwork. It is often seen as both a fascinating sequel to Bartók’s achievement in the string quartet genre as well as the starting point of Ligeti’s own remarkable compositional journey. The concert ends with Beethoven’s Quartet Opus 59 #1 in F, one of the most celebrated works in the repertoire.

The visionary performances of the Borromeo String Quartet have established them as one of the most important string quartets of our time. Formed in 1989, the Borromeo Quartet performs worldwide and has collaborated with many of the great composers and performers of our era. They have worked extensively with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress and are the longtime ensemble-in-residence at the New England Conservatory of Music and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Electric Earth presents the Borromeo String Quartet in Peterborough’s spacious and air-conditioned Town House, one of the region’s finest venues for classical music.