It is no coincidence that Motus Quartet chose the opening piece of Beethoven's first quartet series to head the programme: it was the work that marked the beginning of the four musicians' collaboration, and it is also the starting point for Beethoven's inescapable oeuvre for string quartet. György Kurtág's official oeuvre starts with a string quartet from 1959. He composed again for this ensemble in 1977, condensing the gestures and atmospheres of chamber music into vivid miniatures of less than a minute with 12 microludes.

The programme concludes with another work with Viennese connections, Schubert's string quartet Death and the Maiden, one of the fondest pieces in the quartet repertoire, never to fully reveal the secret of its popularity. To perform it is not a mere reward, as the young musicians strive not to let the hundreds of existing recordings determine their own interpretation, but to dig down into the deepest layers of the music where never-before-heard discoveries await.