Britten, Haydn & Jespersen: Times of Unrest

In 2018, Aksel Nielsen, cellist and chairman of the Chamber music society BRAGE in Randers, started a dialogue with composer Hanne Tofte Jespersen about a new string quartet. He wished to commission her to write a quartet for BRAGE. They both liked the idea of the new work to be composed for a historical theme which would also be relevant for a present audience, incl. youth. They soon agreed on a context of a late Haydn quartet from the 1790s and Benjamin Britten's 1st string quartet from 1941. BRAGE invited Nordic String Quartet to take up the task and involved four other chamber music societies in the project. Neither Aksel nor Hanne had imagined how relevant it would prove to call the project TIMES OF UNREST. But she completed her quartet in spring 2020 when Covid-19 had caused a pandemia and lockdowns preventing any cultural event.