Beethoven concerts celebrate the legacy of Emily Anderson

Music for Galway and NUI Galway celebrate the memory of Galway scholar Emily Anderson with two concerts featuring the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet performing Beethoven’s late quartets.These will take place on Friday and Saturday, February 11 and 12 at 8pm nightly.

These quartets were Beethoven’s last works, written at a time in which he was profoundly deaf and quite ill.

The RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet has been performing all of Beethoven’s string quartets over the past year, as part of the group’s celebration of its 25th anniversary. The Galway concerts are the final shows of this celebration and also serve to celebrate the late Emily Anderson, who translated the correspondence of Beethoven and Mozart into English.Anderson (1891-1962), as daughter of the university’s then president, grew up in the quadrangle of NUIG where many of Music for Galway’s concerts take place.

She was a German lecturer at the college before settling in London where she worked in the Foreign Office. Her international reputation as an academic was secured when she translated letters between Beethoven and Mozart into English.

A concert is held each year in her memory, and is sponsored by NUI Galway. Each year, the concert focuses on the work of Mozart or Beethoven and this year it’s Beethoven’s turn.

The members of the RTÉ Vanbrugh have been living and working in Cork since 1986 when they became the fourth ensemble to hold the RTÉ string quartet residency, established in Cork in 1959. They were appointed Artists-in-residence to University College, Cork in 1991. In 2009 the Quartet took up a position as part-time lecturers in chamber music at DIT Conservatory of Music.

The quartet has nurtured, inspired and supported countless young Irish musicians and has commissioned and championed dozens of new works by Irish composers. At the same time it has built an enviable international reputation, regularly touring Europe, the Americas and the Far East. The quartet has released 25 CDs, including the complete Beethoven quartets.

As part of Music for Galway’s outreach programme, the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet will present and discuss excerpts from various string quartets for the students of Maoin Cheoil na Gallimhe on Saturday, February 11 at 11am.

The Huston School of Film and Digital Media will show the documentary In search of Beethoven by Phil Grabsky on Saturday at 2pm. Admission with concert ticket.

Tickets, €20 per concert; Members and concessions, €16, students (under 26): €6. A weekend ticket costs €36, members and concessions: €30, from Music for Galway 091 705962, Opus II in the Cornstore or www.tht.ie