“Is there a string quartet on this planet that I like more?” Víkingur Ólafsson rhetorically asks. The answer, of course, is no. Formed 25 years ago at the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen, the Danish String Quartet has achieved cult status, with a shelf full of awards to match. Most recently, the four “Vikings,” as they jokingly call themselves on account of their bearded looks, received the prestigious Léonie Sonning Music Prize. Their hallmarks include electrifying arrangements of Nordic folk music, yet they are equally at home in the classical and contemporary repertoire. Their Festival debut begins, fittingly for Víkingur’s programming vision, with Bach. Stravinsky’s neoclassical Suite italienne, heard here in the quartet’s own arrangement, also draws on Baroque models. But the title of the concert comes from Beethoven, who inscribed the finale of his last string quartet with a question: “Muss es sein?” (“Must it be?”) — and gave his own reply in the lively main section: “It must be!” Just like this concert.

EPSG:4326

Danish String Quartet

KKL Luzern Concert Hall

Could this be what eternity sounds like? A performance of Piano and String Quartet, a late work by the American composer Morton Feldman (1926–87), lasts some 80 minutes — yet in all that time we hear little more than delicate, endlessly resonating piano arpeggios and sustained string chords. This crystalline study in pianissimo seems to have no beginning and no end, no sense of direction — there is only surrender to the present moment of sound. Listening to it is a paradoxical experience: in its radical stillness, Feldman’s slow-motion music exerts a powerful pull. “The first 30 minutes feel a little bit slow because the piece is made of these surreal, beautiful, slow moving — or almost not moving — harmonies,” Víkingur remarks. “It’s just this way of being. The next 30 minutes go by so much faster. And the last 30 minutes, believe it or not, go by in a flash.” He was especially eager to return to this “one-of-a-kind” piece, which he last performed a decade ago. The setting will add to the magic, with the audience seated onstage, close to the five performers.

Ludvig Gudim

Events

Upcoming events

May 15, 2026

Danish String Quartet · Lucerne Festival

May 15, 2026

Danish String Quartet | Víkingur Ólafsson · Lucerne Festival

Future and recently performed repertoire

Violin in Three Pieces for String Quartet by Stravinsky

Lucerne Festival

Violin in Suite italienne by Stravinsky

Lucerne Festival

Violin in String Quartet in F Major by Beethoven

Lucerne Festival

Violin in Contrapunctus XIV from The Art of Fugue for String Quartet by Bach

Lucerne Festival

Violin in Piano and String Quartet by Feldman

Lucerne Festival

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