Event Durham

Haydn:The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross (selections)

Schubert:String Quintet in C

Royal Northern Sinfonia

For their final visit of the season, RNS bring two Viennese Classical masterworks to Durham. Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross, heard tonight in its well-known arrangement for string quartet, moves with reflective grace: a series of slow, searching movements inspired by the final phrases spoken by Jesus Christ on the cross.

Schubert’s String Quintet in C major, written just weeks before he died, is widely considered one of the pinnacles of the chamber music repertoire. Lyrical and serene, it is music both intimate and infinite, in which the addition of a cello to the string quartet line-up gives a rich gravity to the sound of the work.