Join us for a celebration of the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, one of the great composers of the Twentieth Century, over a weekend of music at Bantry House.

Shostakovich, one of the great composers of the Twentieth Century, whose music trod the dangerous tightrope between the revelation of truth and terror at the consequences. His cycle of fifteen overwhelming quartets contain the intimate thoughts of a composer, who lived through one of the most oppressive dictatorships of the Twentieth Century. That time has come round again and, worldwide, art and power collide. The Carducci Quartet will play the complete cycle in Bantry House on the October Bank Holiday weekend, 24-26 October.
 
There will be five concerts amounting to just over 6 hours of music in an inimitable West Cork setting.
 
For over a decade the Carducci have been playing these fifteen quartets, composed over 35 years from the Stalinist Purges in the Thirties, to the Nazi invasion and the siege of Leningrad, the post-war crushing of artistic independence, the death of Stalin and the brief Thaw followed by the decades of the Cold War, and the stifling bureaucratic rule whose sole aim was to crush dissent.
 
In these brutal times great artists found a way to speak.
In an intimate West Cork setting, we’re creating time and space to listen.
 
The story goes that Shostakovich loved chandeliers fitted with real candles, like the one in the Bantry House library. He enjoyed preparing them: making sure each candle stood at a true vertical, setting a match to the wicks in advance and then blowing them out so they would be easier to relight when the big moment came.
 
So perhaps he would approve our candlelit celebration of his fifteen great string quartet as part of West Cork Music’s first autumn festival.
 
 
Whole festival passes are available at a 10% discount: see the festival booking form.