BERLIN STAATSKAPELLE STRING QUARTET & MOJCA ERDMANN

When Felix Mendelssohn’s sister Fanny died unexpectedly in 1847, the composer confessed to feeling “the greatest emptiness and barrenness in my mind and heart.” He poured his grief into his F-minor String Quartet, which was to remain the last quartet he completed before passing away himself just a few months later. The Berlin Staatskapelle String Quartet combines this instrumental requiem with Gustav Mahler’s Rückert Songs—works that also talk about love and leave-taking—in an arrangement by Swiss composer David Philip Hefti, with Mojca Erdmann as the soloist. The songs will be interspersed with the individual movements of Hefti’s Sixth String Quartet, Fünf Szenen für Gustav. Schubert’s youthful G-minor Quartet, written when the composer was just 18 years old, completes the program.