Griffon Quartet Offers Free Community Concerts

Midsummer’s Music’s quartet-in-residence, the Griffon String Quartet, is playing community-outreach concerts locally on March 18, 5 pm, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 2336 Canterbury Lane in Sister Bay; and March 20, 3 pm, at the Kress Pavilion, 7845 Church St. in Egg Harbor. The pay-what-you-can programs will feature Mozart’s String Quartet No. 19 in C Major and Paul Hindemith’s String Quartet No. 1 in C Major.

Mozart’s piece, nicknamed “Dissonance” because of its unusually slow introduction and daring harmonies, is the last of the “Haydn Quartets”: a set of six quartets honoring Joseph Haydn, who is generally viewed as the father of the string quartet form and a good friend of Mozart. Hindemith’s first string quartet was not recognized until the mid-1990s because it had not been published with his six other string quartets and was thought to have been lost. The technically challenging piece is melodic, lyrical and Romantic in nature, and it evokes thoughts of Dvořák and Brahms.

Reservations are recommended. Free tickets are available at midsummersmusic.com or by phone at 920.854.7088.