The breathtaking Danish String Quartet (Frederik Øland and Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen [violins], Asbjørn Nørgaard [viola], Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin [cello]) returns for the first of two Berkeley concerts at Zellerbach Hall this season, pairing a Schubert string quartet with a newly commissioned work as part of its Doppelgänger project, a three-season initiative co-commissioned by Cal Performances. Schubert’s profound, probing final quartet is matched here with its musical “double,” a new quartet by Danish composer Bent Sørensen, a winner of the prestigious 2018 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, whose work explores lush, post-Romantic colors and textures.

“There’s a robust, heady kind of beauty at work in the playing of the Danish String Quartet…this formidable ensemble brings a wondrous blend of precision and full-bodied athleticism” (San Francisco Chronicle).

Franz Schubert
String Quartet No. 15 in G major, D. 887

Bent Sørensen
Doppelgänger (Cal Performances Commission)

Franz Schubert (arr. Danish String Quartet)
Schwanengesang, D.957 – Der Doppelgänger