Castalian Quartet - Video

Perfectly timed for 2023 – the centenary of Janáček’s String Quartet No 1 ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ – the Castalian String Quartet, have commissioned a new quartet from Mark-Anthony Turnage, to be premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival on 18 August, 2023. Turnage has continued the thread, started by Beethoven who originally dedicated his Op 47 Violin Sonata to George Bridgetower, although we know it as the ‘Kreutzer Sonata.’ Tolstoy used that title for a short story and Janáček was inspired by Tolstoy. Turnage, in turn, uses a literary inspiration: Rita Dove’s Sonata Mulattica, which re-imagines Bridgetower, for his own quartet ‘Awake‘, to restore balance to the 200-year-old tale of Bridgetower being cut out of musical history. The Castalian String Quartet explain the six steps to this new work…