Animato Kwartet & Khorshid Dadbeh​

Light, Darkness and a Red Sky

​ ​The Animato Quartet shares the stage with Iranian tanbur virtuoso Khorshid Dadbeh. In a captivating programme ​around the theme of night, they explore the contrasts between light and darkness through compositions spanning four centuries. A highlight from the quartet repertoire is Franz Schubert’s Fifteenth String Quartet, a majestic fifty-minute masterwork. Making its world premiere is Aftab Darvishi’s When the Sky Burns Red.

The concert opens with Claudio Monteverdi’s madrigal Darà la notte il sol. “Sooner will the sun illuminate the earth at night than I will cease my mourning.” Monteverdi lets radiant light break through the darkness of grief. Henri Dutilleux’s Ainsi la nuit (1976) fully immerses us in the night: a sophisticated and magical poem with captivating colours.

The premiere piece When the Sky Burns Red forms the heart of the programme. Aftab Darvishi drew inspiration from the mystical Yarsan tradition of the Kurdish Kermanshah region in western Iran, where music serves as an instrument for finding inner light. The tanbur, a long-necked lute revered as sacred, takes center stage in a virtuosic solo part.

Schubert’s final String Quartet in G major, D 887 (1826) concludes the program with symphonic grandeur—a masterwork in which lyrical intimacy and dramatic power deepen and intensify one another.