Brooklyn Rider

Welcome to the 20th Klarafestival!

Under the title We Are Now, this special anniversary edition pays tribute to the here and now. No one embraces the magic of the moment more fearlessly than festival artist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Wherever and whatever she plays, this Moldovan violinist and composer sets the stage alight. For her, every concert is a new beginning, a full moment in which anything can happen. Klarafestival 2025 paints a multifaceted portrait of Patricia Kopatchinskaja as a violinist, composer and inspiring presence.

In honour of our 20th anniversary, we are launching a new tradition: for one day, Mont des Arts will be transformed into the Muziekberg /Mont des Musiques. Alongside concerts and performances at various venues, a new ensemble will also see the light. Sound of Brussels Orchestra goes in search of the exceptional sound of our capital.

We live in challenging times, and some of the festival projects reflect on this. At the same time, they demonstrate how much hope can lurk between the notes of a Stabat Mater or a Dies Irae. How music can move and inspire us. For Patricia Kopatchinskaja, music is no abstract matter: ‘Music is there for us to do something with it. Even when it has no concrete message or function, it appeals to us. It wants to be heard. I don't believe in absolute music. Not really.'

Let the celebration begin!

Joost Fonteyne, intendant
Jan Raes, chairman
Chantal Pattyn, network manager

Brooklyn Rider’s Upon One Note: What you C is what you get

Have you ever asked yourself where a string quartet begins? Technically speaking, it is with a low C, the thickest string on the largest – and therefore lowest – of the four instruments, the cello. In Upon One Note, Brooklyn Rider sing the praises of this fundament: the C as the acoustic basis of a string quartet’s sound world. Starting here, the four musicians present a programme in which three hundred years of music come together, with root note C as the connecting factor. The theme is clear, but what a variety in its execution!    

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s String Quartet No. 19 in C major (K 465, 1785) marks the golden years of the classical string quartet. It is the sixth and last in a series of string quartets dedicated to his esteemed colleague Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). It must have been a project close to Mozart’s heart; in his dedication, he called these string quartets his ‘children’ and ‘the fruit of a long and laborious endeavour’. Mozart used the series to experiment: with the string quartet form, with dynamic contrasts and with the limits of harmony, through the well-aimed deployment of chromaticism and dissonance. This especially characterises  K 465, commonly referred to as the ‘Dissonance’ quartet.

It was certainly controversial when Mozart began his ‘Dissonance’ quartet with a repeated C from the cello, and then immediately undermined each harmonic shape with inharmonious chords. The strings’ abrasiveness in this renowned, slow introduction would begin a debate lasting decades. Anecdotes appeared in the press. It seemed, said critics, that the sheet music was full of printing errors. The rumour spread that Viennese publishing house Artaria had returned the music for the composer to correct before publication. Haydn, in contrast, found it just fine. When he heard the work in Vienna in 1785, he voiced deep respect for his younger colleague, whom he called – according to a letter from father Leopold Mozart – the ‘greatest of all’. 

A century earlier, before the string quartet was a clearly defined genre, Henry Purcell (1659-1695), on the other side of the Channel, wrote down a series of C’s for his Fantasia Upon One Note (ca. 1680). In this fantasy, originally for five instruments (viola da gambas), the tenor part repeats a middle C throughout the entire work. The other instruments meticulously weave their melodic lines around it, according to the rules of counterpoint.

In her String Quartet III, ‘9 Études’ (1973), the French-American composer Betsy Jolas (1926) looks back to Purcell’s work. Jolas’ quartet consists of nine brief studies, each one exploring a specific technique of the string quartet, such as pizzicato, vibrato and flageolet tones. In the seventh study, ‘Aleatory structures around a held C’, one of the strings holds a C, while the other instruments build ‘aleatory structures’ around it. Where Purcell practiced counterpoint, Jolas writes a study on a 20th-century composition technique: aleatory (from the Latin ‘alea’, meaning ‘dice’). This indicates an element of chance in the music: the C is held, but the other instruments enjoy freedom in the execution of the material assigned to them – each performance is therefore unique.

In the exploration of compositional techniques, the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (1935) is again looking for a fresh simplicity. Solfeggio (1963), originally a vocal work, is Pärt’s first composition for four-part choir (SATB) a capella. The title is significant: the work is based on the C major scale, as if it were a music theory lesson. The different voices intone in turn, in different octaves, a new tonal step from the scale. These tones are held, by which harmonies appear that periodically, as if by accident, attain an ethereal euphony.

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) never left anything to chance, and certainly not in the composition of his monumental String Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 51 No.1 (1873). It had taken some time to put to paper, partly because of his famous struggle with the shadow of that other musical genius, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). Above all in the increasingly important genre of the string quartet, he feared comparisons – he is said to have claimed that he heard ‘the footfalls of a giant’ behind him. This almost crippling admiration eventually became a homage, and in the meaningful key of C minor, that Beethoven had used in drama-filled works such as his fifth symphony and his last piano sonata. C minor is incidentally also the key of Brahms’ first symphony, that he completed in 1876, but which he had worked on for years.

Brahms’ first string quartet has an unusually intense and restless character. A constant rhythmic motion, that barely allows room to take a breath, propels the first movement forward. This driving force eases slightly in the slow second movement, a ‘Romanze’ that never entirely lets go of the melancholy and questing sphere. In the third movement, with characteristically descending melodic lines, the sun again briefly shines through in the central section. Typical of Brahms’ work is the strong motivic coherence. This is witnessed in the fiery finale, beginning with a rising motion reminiscent of the opening motif of the first movement.

In this set of five stylistically diverse works, C minor functions as a centre and safe haven, then again as a homage, and occasionally an invitation to controversy. After the concert is over, its echoes will undoubtedly continue to resonate.

Hannah Aelvoet

Translation: Patrick Goddard

Brooklyn Rider

The American string quartet Brooklyn Rider was inspired by the early 20th-century artist group Der Blaue Reiter, which stood for an innovative vision of the future of art. The mission of the quartet is to breathe new life into the string quartet with an eclectic and modern repertoire. The quartet has played commissioned works by composers such as Du Yun, Matana Roberts and Caroline Shaw. In 2011, Brooklyn Rider recorded the complete string quartets of Philip Glass, later supplemented with recordings of his most recent quartets. The quartet has also released albums with artists such as mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, jazz singer Magos Herrera and fiddle player Martin Hayes.