Brentano Quartet

The Brentano Quartet plays the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center on Sunday, December 13, 2026. The concert starts at 2 PM, with a pre-concert talk at 1 PM led by Jonathan Coopersmith. The whole afternoon is built around the fugue, a form of writing where a single theme is introduced and then layered on top of itself, creating a dense overlap of competing yet complementary voices. The program pairs that mathematical side of the music with the philosophical weight of the pieces themselves.

They're playing Shostakovich's Fugue in E-flat Minor, Op. 87, No. 14 (arranged for quartet) and his Quartet No. 15, Op. 144, alongside J.S. Bach's Fugue in C-sharp Minor, BWV 849 (also arranged) and Beethoven's Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131. The two larger works are both late-period pieces and both break the mold: Beethoven's Op. 131 is cast in seven continuous sections rather than the traditional four, and Shostakovich's Op. 144 is a somber six-movement work known for its profound melancholy and its lack of pauses.

The Brentano Quartet is Yale University's current quartet in residence, with a career spanning more than three decades and appearances worldwide to popular and critical acclaim. The New York Times has described their sound as "luxuriously warm" with a "yearning lyricism," which fits the mood of a program that leans so heavily on the late, more introspective works of Beethoven and Shostakovich.

The concert is presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and it's already sold out, with a waitlist run by the Society. If you're looking for a ticket, that's where you'll need to check. The talk starts at 1 PM, and the music follows at 2 PM at the Perelman Theater, 300 South Broad Street.