Tantalizingly Bizarre. Those two words sum up how i felt about Heiner Muller's Quartett. After a weeks worth of anticipatory class room discussion based on texts, I was looking forward to seeing the beast itself live on stage.

At first it was a bit jarring, and I struggled to make sense of it all between the captions and all the eccentric activity on stage.

On Monday, November 16th the Alexander String Quartet was playing at Baruch's Performing Arts Center and the Guest artist was the viola player. They played Felix Mendelssohn's String Quartet in A minor and String Quintet in B-flat major and Robert Schumann's String Quartet in A minor.  There were four musicians who played together throughout the entire concert. 

The Windsor Castle

I thought the Alexander String Quartet concert was pretty good, even if the acoustics were poor. (Concrete isn't a good material for the walls of a concert hall.) I haven't heard many live Mendelson or Schumann quartets, or much Mendelson or Schumann at all in a concert hall, so seeing this was certainly different from the more odd avant-garde plays and concerts that we've been going to. However, I was surprised and somewhat disappointed that the concert was only an hour and fifteen minutes long, but I guess it has to be short since tonight is a school night.