Concerts with her string quartet are always highlights of the season for violinist Julia Fischer. “Not only do the four of us enjoy playing together, we are also close friends,” says our former Artist in Residence, describing the atmosphere in which she has been devoting herself to the high art of playing on 16 strings for a decade and a half with violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, violist Nils Mönkemeyer, and cellist Nyffenegger. On their music stands is the third of Shostakovich's 15 string quartets, written in 1946. In it, the composer “gave free rein to his heavy and serious humor,” wrote music publisher Pierre-Émile Barbier, and “transformed his pain over the war into sovereign art, in an almost Mozartian mutation.” This work is framed by Schubert's Quartet Movement in C minor and Johannes Brahms's Second String Quartet, which took him a long time to complete due to serious serious self-doubts. Fortunately, he never gave up on it.