DaPonte String Quartet’s concert dates, between Aug. 14 and Sept. 25, will feature by Mozart’s  “String Quartet in C Major K. 465 (“Dissonance”); and “String Quartet No. 8” by Shostakovich.

In 1783, sixteen years before Beethoven his first symphony, Mozart composed a string quartet with an opening section surpassing in harmonic complexity anything written until Wagner.   The question, then, is what Mozart is doing in the first movement of the Dissonance quartet that’s so unusual for its time?  His String Quartet in C Major, nicknamed “Dissonance” is a masterful combination of notes - harmonic yet surprising, melodic yet startling.       

After his diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1960, Dmitry Shostakovich contemplated suicide, and wrote the “Eighth String Quartet” in only three days (July 12-14, 1960), intended as his own epitaph. Less than seven years had elapsed since Stalin's death in 1953 ended one of the most brutal national terrors ever inflicted.  The composer constructs a series of tableaux comprising an almost hysterical denunciation of the Soviet state. Some of the effects Shostakovich uses to paint the pictures are low drone notes, symbolizing electrified fences, or the barking sounds of Alsatian guard dogs against a wildly-scrambling texture evoking the running steps of people fleeing for their lives.

Performance dates, times and locations: Aug. 14 - 7 p.m. at Rockport Opera House;  Aug. 19 - 7 p.m. at Robinhood Free Meetinghouse in Georgetown;  Aug. 21 - 4:30 p.m. at Medomak New Barn in Washington; Aug. 22 - 4 p.m.  at Surry Arts in the Barn;  Aug. 28 - 5 p.m.  at St Paul’s Union Chapel, Waldoboro;  Sept. 12 - 7 p.m. at Old Walpole Meetinghouse; and  Sept. 25th - 5 p.m. at Ocean View Grange in Port Clyde.

Come here these two significant works, performed by masters of their instruments, the DaPonte String Quartet.  Tickets available at www.daponte.org