The Heath Quartet, joined by soprano Carolyn Sampson, traces the ways in which composers from Britain and continental Europe found a personal approach to the string quartet. For Benjamin Britten, the way forward led through an intense engagement with the works of Beethoven and Haydn, while Ravel primarily had to grapple with the influence of Debussy. Schoenberg, meanwhile, left behind the confines of the genre through the free use of dissonance and the addition of the soprano voice.

At the end of the season, the Quartet Week casts a spotlight on what many consider to be the quintessential chamber music format. Between June 7 and 16, eleven extraordinary international ensembles will explore both the historical development and the vast emotional scope of the string quartet genre in the intimate space of the Pierre Boulez Saal.