The Tokyo String Quartet's Final Boston Performance

The Tokyo String Quartet visits CNE's Fraser Performance Studio for its final Boston performance, presented by Celebrity Series of Boston.

Tune in to Classical New England on Sunday, April 7, at 3pm.

After 43 years, the Tokyo Quartet, one of the great chamber ensembles of our time leaves the concert stage at the end of the 2012-2013 concert season.
 

Presented by Celebrity Series of Boston, the program of the concert includes

Haydn: String Quartet in G, Op. 77, No. 1

Bartók: String Quartet No. 3

Ravel: String Quartet in F


Officially formed in 1969 at the Juilliard School of Music, the Tokyo Quartet traces its origins to the Toho School of Music in Tokyo, where the founding members were profoundly influenced by Professor Hideo Saito.

The quartet, including violinists Martin Beaver and Kikuei Ikeda, violist Kazuhide Isomura, and cellist Clive Greensmith, performs on the "Paganini Quartet." This group of renowned Stradivarius instruments named for legendary virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, who acquired and played them during the 19th century. The instruments have been on loan to the quartet from the Nippon Music Foundation since 1995, when they were purchased from the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

The group's final recording, including Dvorák's String Quartet No. 12 in F, Op. 96, the "American," and Smetana's String Quartet No. 1, "From My Life," will be released next month on Harmonia Mundi.