The Blair String Quartet needs no introduction to local chamber music fans. With only one personnel change in over 20 years, they must be one of Nashville's most stable musical outfits, and they're also among the most polished. The Ceruti Quartet, currently artists-in-residence at the University of Memphis, collaborates with the Blair Quartet this Friday in a concert celebrating Felix Mendelssohn's 200th birthday this year. The groups will join forces for his 1825 Octet, a true masterpiece from the earliest flowering of Mendelssohn's mature style. (You can do the math: we'll just say he was still rather young.) The Ceruti will present one of Mendelssohn's late works, from his Op. 81, and Samuel Barber's 1936 String Quartet, the original source of his celebrated Adagio for Strings. Also on the program is Beethoven's early String Quartet No. 4 in C minor.
Fri., Oct. 30, 8 p.m., 2009
Fri., Oct. 30, 8 p.m., 2009
