Wolf - String Quartet/Italian Serenade

Arguably, the greatest lieder composer who ever lived, Hugo Wolf was indisputably his own worst enemy. Alienating fellow composers and potential performers did little to advance his career and even his own father was forced to write” You have already adopted all Beethoven's waywardness and bad habits…”! The resemblance with the Titan is more than circumstantial in Wolf's early String Quartet in d minor. Drawing heavily upon Beethoven's F minor Quartet, op. 95 for its inspiration, Wolf's Quartet is a restless tour de force, gorgeously scored for the ensemble. Standing at the work's center is a sublime slow movement that sounds as if Schubert had composed Tristan und Isolde. The program concludes with Wolf's lighter-than-air “Italian Serenade”, handsomely performed by the energetic Fine Arts Quartet.