Franz Schubert
String Quartet in E-flat major D 87

Thomas Adès
Arcadiana for String Quartet Op. 12

Ludwig van Beethoven
String Quartet in C major Op. 59/3

British composer Thomas Adès’s Arcadiana combines musical and non­musical influences—from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte to the paintings of Poussin and Watteau, to Greek mythology—to evoke paradisiacal scenes. In its second concert of the season, the Berlin Staatskapelle String Quartet performs the piece, written in 1994 and already considered a contemporary classic, alongside 19th­century quartets by Schubert and Beethoven.