Peggy Guggenheim Anniversary Concert

For Camille Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré, the two most senior figures of French music at the end of the First World War, the string quartet represented a summit to be scaled before it was too late. Saint-Saëns returned to the genre in 1918, twenty years after his First Quartet, while Fauré devoted his final opus to the genre, a work that was premiered a few months after his death. In these swansongs, each composer placed a part of his heritage: Mozartian clarity for the one, harmonic refinement for the other. Showing great modesty – with entertaining episodes on the one hand, and concision on the other – both composers aimed for lasting appeal rather than immediate success.