PROGRAMMESaturday, 26 April 2009 at The Lion Hotel, Shrewsbury at 7.30pm
Matthew Denton violin
Michelle Fleming violin
Eoin Schmidt-Martin viola
Emma Denton cello
Quartet in Bb, K458 'The Hunt' - Mozart
Quartet No 4 - Bartok
Quartet in F major - Ravel
On Monday 27th the Carducci are giving Workshops at Longnor and Longden Primary Schools This is supported by the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust, who are also enabling us to offer Free Tickets for Young People (8-22yrs)/or the Carducci Concerts - Please encourage people to make use of this opportunity for their other two visits: Sunday May 10th and Sunday June 7th
Quartet in Bb maj, K.458 'Hunt’ - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
1. Allegro vivace assai
2. Menuetto: Moderato
3. Adagio
4. Allegro assai
In 1782 Joseph Haydn published his first string quartets for a decade, the set of six, Op.33. Doubtless fired by a mixture of admiration and competitiveness, Mozart embarked on a new set of string quartets of his own, which he later dedicated to ‘my dear friend Haydn’. Unusually for Mozart, the process was ‘long and laborious’, although the final results sound as spontaneous and fluent as any of the composer's music. After a private performance of the last three quartets in Haydn's presence in 1785, the older composer remarked to Mozart's father: ‘Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name.’
The subtitle ‘Hunt’ comes from the opening theme of the first movement which is said to resemble a hunting song or the calls of hunting horns. Playful and good humoured, the first movement is a highly sophisticated example of Classical style in its finest form. In the second movement we move from the hunting field to the salon with a graceful and expressive Menuetto. The trio section is lighter still, echoing perhaps the sounds of a music box and the dancers 'sur les pointes'. The beautiful Adagio begins simply, after which the first violin spins an increasingly ornamented melodic line as it develops. The final Allegro assai returns us to the high spirits of the opening movement and brings the work to a bright and uplifting close.
Quartet No.4 - Bela Bartok (1881-1945)
1. Allegro
2. Prestissimo, con sordino
3. Non troppo lento
4. Allegretto pizzicato
5. Allegro molto
Bartok thoroughly explores melody in the first movement of his Fourth Quartet His love of Hungarian folk tunes - thus his love of melody - pervades his music. It is treated, of course, in a complex modern musical language fully employed in the second movement with its dazzling display of tonal effects.
Folk melody, however, returns in the central movement with its cello solo reflective of the Hungarian folk instrument related to the oboe or clarinet. Bird songs enter the middle section of the movement in what Bartok referred to as ‘night music.’ The fourth and fifth movements are melodically related to the first and second and give to the whole quartet the strict form that Bartok honoured in his work.
The exquisite arc of the quartet with its fast outer movements clustered around the central slow movement, itself a perfect A-B-A sonata form, is a monumental achievement in cyclical writing in contemporary music. Transcending melody and form, however, is a spirituality that rivets us to the work. But it may have also caused Bartok to question his own modernism. ‘Mr. Nielsen, do you think my music is modern enough?’ Bela Bartok is said to have asked Carl Nielsen in 1920. Whatever insecurities Bartok might have had on that score were probably based on his awareness of the traditional aspects of his music, namely melody and form, which we tend to forget because of the still challenging modernism of its overall effect.
Quartet in F Major - Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
1. Allegro moderate tres doux
2. Assez vif- tres rythme
3. Tres lent
4. Vif et agite
Ravel's only string quartet was written in 1902, ten years after that of Debussy and twenty years before that of Faure, to whom the work is dedicated. Faure himself was less than kind about the quartet, describing the fourth movement as ‘stunted, badly balanced, in fact a failure.’ However, Ravel's proposal to rewrite the third and fourth movements prompted Debussy to write: ‘In the name of the gods of music and of mine, do not touch anything of what you have written of your quartet.’
The first movement is in a strict ternary form, reminiscent of the early Piano Quartet of Faure, with the pizzicato second movement full of dramatic rhythmic conflicts. The slow movement is a free rhapsody with a meditative character and is followed by a lively final movement in 5/8 time. On hearing the first performance in 1904, the critic Jean Mangold described Ravel as ‘one of the masters of tomorrow.’
Carducci String Quartet
The Carducci Quartet is recognised as one of today's most exciting young string quartets. Winners of the Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York, the Kuhmo International Chamber Music Competition and major prizes at the Bordeaux, London and Osaka competitions, the quartet has established an enthusiastic International following.
The Anglo-Irish Carducci quartet studied with members of the Amadeus, Alban Berg, Chilingirian, Takacs and Vanbrugh quartets and, as part of the ProQuartet professional training programme in France, studied with Gyorgy Kurtag, Walter Levin and Paul Katz. They are now in demand at conservatoires around the UK and Ireland, holding residencies at Trinity College of Music in London, Cardiff University, Cork School of Music and the Gloucester Academy of Music.
They recently established their own record label 'Carducci Classics', launched with a CD of Haydn String Quartets. Two world premiere recordings featuring C20th works by G. Whettam and J. Horovitz followed in 2008. The complete quartets by Irish composer Brian Boydell will be released shortly. The Carduccis have also recorded (Vivaldi and Piazzolla) with the Katona Twins Guitar Duo for Channel Classics. The Carducci Quartet's international engagements have taken them to the USA, Japan, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Poland and Italy, where after performing numerous concerts at the Castagnetto-Carducci Festival in 2001 the quartet adopted the name ‘Carducci’ with the blessing of the Mayor.
The Quartet was nominated for the 2008 Royal Philharmonic Society Chamber Music Award and has recently collaborated with such internationally renowned musicians as Nicholas Daniel, Julius Drake, Graham Oppenheimer, Charles Owen, Kazuki Sawa, Julian Bliss, Patricia Rosario and the RTE Vanburgh Quartet. Past highlights include appearances at the Verbier, West Cork and Wratislavia Cantans Festivals, an Aldeburgh residency and broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, RTE Lyric FM and BBC television. Following on from their critically acclaimed Purcell Room and Wigmore Hall debuts in London for the Park Lane Group, the quartet has gained an enviable reputation for their performances of contemporary works. This season, the quartet will premiere new commissions from David Matthews, Adrian Williams, Simon Rowland Jones and Huang Ruo and will perform in the 'New Music, New Places' series, New York and at the Second Glance Festival, London. The quartet has also embraced collaborations with other disciplines, working alongside the Henri Oguike and Random Dance companies and with the acclaimed Sarod player Wajahat Kahn.
The quartet are passionate about taking Classical music to the next generation and run chamber music courses for young musicians in France and Ireland. Their educational work continues with performances for school children sponsored by the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust and West Cork Music and coaching on the National Youth String Quartet Weekend, run by the London String Quartet Foundation at Chetham's School of Music. The upcoming season will include their Carnegie Hall debut, a complete Bartok quartet cycle, a Naxos recording and performances at the Wigmore Hall, Washington Library of Congress and their own festival in Highnam Gloucestershire. The Carducci Quartet gratefully acknowledges the support of the Coln Trust.Last Updated : 11/05/2009