For Classical Music Chicago's Rush Hour Concert on July 7, 2026, Varo String Quartet will perform a program of Grazyna Bacewicz's String Quartet No. 4 (1952) and Haydn's String Quartet in C Major, Op. 20 No. 2 (1772) - putting two examples of consummate string writing in conversation with one another. An accomplished violinist as well as a composer, Bacewicz's String Quartet No. 4 is full of lush harmony, singing melodies, and jaunty, dancelike themes. Ever the innovator, Bacewicz’s idiomatic string writing explores shifts in color and mood, as well as surprising atonality and unexpected instrumental timbres. This spirit of innovation and surprise is also present in Haydn's Op. 20 No. 2. As the “inventor” of the string quartet, Haydn had barely written the rules before he began breaking them: giving his first theme to the cello, throughout his capricious 2nd movement, in the hurdy-gurdy spin of the minuet, and with the “fugue for friends” that brings his C Major quartet to a spectacular close.