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Candybox

Matangi Quartet

Candybox

Format: CD
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917235326
Catnr: CC 72353
Release date: 02 April 2010
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1 CD
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Label
Challenge Classics
UPC
0608917235326
Catalogue number
CC 72353
Release date
02 April 2010
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
EN
NL
DE

About the album

A luxurious Anniversary-candybox with different musical sweets. The music fits the quartet like a glove and with it the quartet celebrates that already for 10 years it is an important, fully professional and full time stringquartet. The box has divers, challenging and delightful music. Just like a heavenly tasting candybox should be: delicious! This music shows exactly how multifaced the Matangi Quartet is.

The gritty humour, momentum and irony in this arrangementby Sándor Devich (second violinist of the renowned Bartók Quartet) give the impression that Shostakovich was somewhere nearby, but when Bartók wrote these notes, in May 1908, Dmitri Dmitrievich was not yet 2 years old!

For five movements, enkins lets us grabble freely in a candy box of the most divergent types of music, fluttering from folk-like fiddle to baroque beat, minimal and tango.

In the Dutch new music world, Chiel Meijering is the craftsman who composes at lightning speed and time and again opens the door to the liberating beats of pop culture. Meijering drags anything from there that is quick, supple, exciting and hot into Caixa de Dolços, the Matangis acoustical playground.

The Eastern European composerVladimir Godár, from Bratislava, is renowned as a film composer and often named in a single breath with his spiritual predecessors Arvo Pärt and Henryk Gorecki. But he has more skills than just swinging the censer. In Godár’s Concerto Grosso for 12 strings and harpsichord, there’s a daredevil presto, for instance. Foot-stamping neo-Baroque.

In Música de Feria, Silvestre Revueltas brings total abandon and surprising twists. Dictatorship, revolution, civil war and revolutionary leaders, several of whom died prematurely, murdered: Revueltas experienced it all, as can be heard in the impetuous outer movements. What comes between is like an acid full of soft and pure fruit extract, for at the fair (feria), the heart of the Mexican nation beats with warm-blooded folklore.

One day Dvorak's pubescent daughter caught Josef Suk's eye. Suk, at a ripe age, married Otilka Dvonákova, but a heart condition soon took his muse away. After, Suk became more introspective. In this meditation from 1914, Suk looks for consolation in an old Bohemian chorale, Svatý Václave.

A sultry atmosphere rises from the Serenata by Joaquín Turina Pérez, who was born in Seville and was a friend of De Falla. We come upon the pianist, composer and music journalist shortly after his pen was temporarily silenced by the Spanish Civil War.
Een luxueuze doos met muzikale snoepjes ter ere van hun tienjarig bestaan, dat is wat het Matangi Quartet ons met dit album cadeau geeft. De doos bevat de meest uiteenlopende muziek, van folk-achtige viool tot Barok, minimalistische muziek en tango. En die muziek past het kwartet als een handschoen. Met deze heerlijke muziek laat Matangi horen hoe veelzijdig het is. Intens, warm, aangrijpend en op hoog niveau gespeeld! Het Parool schreef: "Onder het motto 'goede muziek is goede muziek, ongeacht de stijl en genre', vermengen ze op Candybox muziek van componisten in verschillende soorten en maten, zoals ook Engelse drop een allegaartje van smaken is." EV - Het Parool, april 2010.

Het Matangi Quartet is een professioneel strijkkwartet dat in de Benelux zeer bekend is en steeds meer bekendheid krijgt in landen daarbuiten. Het kwartet wordt veelal omschreven als communicatief, provocerend en verfrissend veelzijdig.

De muziek op deze verzameling past uitstekend bij de kwaliteiten van het Matangi Quartet. Het is een weergave van de muziek die de voorbije 10 jaar een belangrijke rol heeft gespeeld in de ontwikkeling van het kwartet. Naast stukken van Bartók en Jenkins, bevat het album een stuk dat Chiel Meijering − een Nederlandse componist die veel inspiratie opdoet uit popmuziek − speciaal voor het Matangi Quartet heeft gecomponeerd.

Das niederländische Matangi Quartet präsentiert anlässlich ihres 10-jährigen Bestehens eine bunte Mischung herausfordernder und entzückender Kammermusik. Mit Werken von Bartok, Karl Jenkins, Suk u.v.a. stellt das Ensemble seine Vielseitigkeit und Leidenschaftlichkeit unter Beweis. // Inhalt: BÉLA BARTÓK Valse (arr. Sándor Devich); VLADIMÍR GODÁR Ground (from: concerto grosso per archi e cembalo); KARL JENKINS String Quartet no. 2 (1995); CHIEL MEIJERING Caixa de Dolços (2009); SILVESTRE REVUELTAS Música de Feria; JOSEF SUK Meditation Svatý Václave op. 35; JOAQUÍN TURINA Serenata op. 87

Artist(s)

Matangi Quartet

The Matangi Quartet was founded in 1999 by four young musicians then studying at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and the Conservatory of Rotterdam. In 2003 Matangi completed the two-year, full-time course at the Netherlands String Quartet Academy under the direction of Stefan Metz (cellist, Orlando Quartet). At the Academy, the Matangi Quartet had the opportunity to take lessons from international renowned musicians, including the members of the Amadeus Quartet. The quartet also received intensive mentoring from Henk Guittart (violist, Schönberg Quartet) for several years. The Matangi Quartet has since developed into a regular performer in the Dutch chamber music scene and abroad. With their impassioned playing and smart presentation, Maria-Paula, Daniel, Karsten and Arno epitomize a new generation of...
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The Matangi Quartet was founded in 1999 by four young musicians then studying at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and the Conservatory of Rotterdam. In 2003 Matangi completed the two-year, full-time course at the Netherlands String Quartet Academy under the direction of Stefan Metz (cellist, Orlando Quartet). At the Academy, the Matangi Quartet had the opportunity to take lessons from international renowned musicians, including the members of the Amadeus Quartet. The quartet also received intensive mentoring from Henk Guittart (violist, Schönberg Quartet) for several years.
The Matangi Quartet has since developed into a regular performer in the Dutch chamber music scene and abroad. With their impassioned playing and smart presentation, Maria-Paula, Daniel, Karsten and Arno epitomize a new generation of classical musicians. They are often characterized by words such as communicative, provocative and refreshingly versatile. The Matangi Quartet has shared the stage with various top-class classical musicians such as the Schönberg Quartet, the Royal Quartet, Miranda van Kralingen, Tania Kross, Ivo Janssen, Paolo Giacometti and Severin von Eckardstein.
The quartet has also been invited to perform in various festivals and concert series, including the Delft Chamber Music Festival, the Amsterdam Grachtenfestival, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the Orlando Festival, the Robeco Summer Concert Series in Amsterdam, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Festival van Carthage in Tunisia, the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai and the International Conservatoire Festival in St Petersburg. Since 2005 the quartet has presented its own concert series in the ‘Beurs van Berlage’ in Amsterdam.
In 2002 Matangi was awarded the prestigious Kersjes van de Groenekan Award, an annual prize awarded to exceptional chamber music talent in the Netherlands. In 2008 the quartet won third prize at the International Joseph Joachim Chamber Music Competition in Weimar. The Matangi Quartet released several CDs issued by Challenge Records International which all received great critical acclaim. The latest releases were the CDs ‘Mendelssohn’ (2009) and ‘Candybox’ (2010). Together with viola da gamba player Ralph Rousseau the quartet won the Edison Audience Award 2009, for their CD ‘Chansons d’amour’ (Challenge Records 2008).
Matangi regularly participates in innovative crossover projects and has performed in collaboration with artists such as cabaretiers Herman van Veen and Youp van ’t Hek, bandoneon player Carel Kraayenhof, jazz trumpeter Eric Vloeimans, DJ Kypski, jazz vocalists Mathilde Santing and Renske Taminiau, singer songwriters Lory Liebermann and Tom McRae. These pioneering excursions beyond the borders of classical music have resulted in Matangi winning an enthusiastic new public for the string quartet. No less important, this has provided a source of inspiration for infusing performances of the rich classical repertoire built up over the past 250 years – from Haydn to Adès – with new élan. For essentially, the Matangi are focused on just one thing: letting the audience palpably experience the energy, passion and excitement that is inherent in all good music.
All four musicians perform on instruments of Dutch workmanship. The cello and first violin have been provided on loan by the Dutch National Musical Instrument Foundation.
Who is Matangi? Matangi is the Indian goddess of speech, music and writing. The vina that she carries in her hand is an instrument that produces deep sounds with pleasing overtones. Matangi transports her listeners with her playing on the strings of passion, fervour, love and ecstasy.

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Composer(s)

Chiel Meijering

Chiel Meijering was born in Amsterdam. He studied composition with Ton de Leeuw, percussion under Jan Labordus and Jan Pustjens and piano at the Amsterdam Conservatory of Music. He is one of the most performed Dutch composers. Meijering has an enormous output of works. He has written over 900 compositions so far, for almost any instrumentation imaginable. A main focus has been on various small ensemble settings. Many of these pieces are performed regularly in the Netherlands and abroad and were written for renowned chamber music ensembles, such as the Aurelia Saxophone Quartet, the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet, the Mondriaan String Quartet, the Matangi String Quartet, the Sinfonietta Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Guitar Trio, the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble or German newcomer ensemble Spark....
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Chiel Meijering was born in Amsterdam. He studied composition with Ton de Leeuw, percussion under Jan Labordus and Jan Pustjens and piano at the Amsterdam Conservatory of Music. He is one of the most performed Dutch composers.
Meijering has an enormous output of works. He has written over 900 compositions so far, for almost any instrumentation imaginable. A main focus has been on various small ensemble settings. Many of these pieces are performed regularly in the Netherlands and abroad and were written for renowned chamber music ensembles, such as the Aurelia Saxophone Quartet, the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet, the Mondriaan String Quartet, the Matangi String Quartet, the Sinfonietta Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Guitar Trio, the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble or German newcomer ensemble Spark. Since the 2000s, Meijering has developed a growing interest into opera. The overwhelming success of his Alzheimer Opera, which was premiered in January 2006 at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ marked his breakthrough with a larger theater audience. "Alzheimer" was quickly followed by several productions, such as "Styx", "De keizer is knetter", "Grenspost Zinnenwald" and "Blauwbaard". Meijering is currently working on a new opera for the Holland Opera Company, to be performed in 2011. Furthermore he has received a commission by the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble in cooperation with Concertgebouw Amsterdam for a short opera for children, which will be performed in front of about 5000 children within four days. Some of the songs in the opera will also be sung by the children as part of an educational project.
A very strong characteristic of Meijering's works is a large variety of styles. Without any difficulty, he seems to move between different musical worlds and genres and thus creates a different texture for each of his works. Some of them remind of pop, jazz or world music, others are written in a classical tradition or show avant-garde elements. Meijering is driven by spontaneity. All kinds of emotions and experiences that arise during a day, may directly flow into the composition he is working on. Sometimes he even uses accidents as a method and throws the dice for creating clusters. Meijerings works always have programmatic titles, sometimes funny or provocative or fooling around with toilet or sex humour. Examples include "I Hate Mozart" (for flute, alto saxophone, harp and violin), "I've Never Seen a Straight Banana" (for alto saxophone, marimba, piano, harp, and violin), "If the Camels Don't Get You, the Fatimas Must!" (for solo violin), "When the Cock Crowed His Warning" (for two recorders, viola, cello and piano), "GangBang" (for large orchestra and electric guitar) and "Background-Music for Non-Entertainment Use in Order to Cover Unwanted Noise" (for four saxophones). This philosophy goes back to the 1970s, when he tried to separate himself from the all to pragmatic and dry practice of most of his colleaugues, naming their pieces "Sonata No. 33" or "Symphonie No. 15". Now that he has reached the middle of his fifties, Meijering's titles - as well as his music - are experiencing a shift to the more romantic and poetic side: "NightbeastCry" (for toy piano), "The house with paper walls" (for viola and harp) or "Blue shadows flower into light" (for saxophone orchestra and two pianos).
Meijering has found a large public not only in the Netherlands, but also on international stages. His music shows high artistry and still remains catchy and accessible for a broad audience. This is a very rare combination in the contemporary music scene and has helped Meijering to establish himself not only within the serious music circle, but also and foremost in the international classical music scene. Even Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands outet herself as a huge lover of Meijering's music, when she ordered one of his compositions for a festive concert on the occasion of her 60th birthday. Without any doubt, Meijering can be described as one of the most popular and famous voices of contemporary Dutch music.

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Karl Jenkins

The career of jazz musician and composer Karl Jenkins is continually shifting between classical and popular. In his early years he was principal oboist of the youth orchestra of Wales. However, he became interested in jazz to such an extent that the traded his oboe for a saxophone. A commercial tune for Delta Airlnes became an unexpected hit. This sudden popularity inspired Jenkins to compose for the concert hall. One could characterize the style of Jenkins’ oratorios as pop music, but modeled on symphonic music. He can be compared to the ‘classical’ Paul McCartney, although Jenkins has much better grasp of the general structure. The liberality with which Jenkins adapts the ancient Christian texts as he sees fit is also...
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The career of jazz musician and composer Karl Jenkins is continually shifting between classical and popular. In his early years he was principal oboist of the youth orchestra of Wales. However, he became interested in jazz to such an extent that the traded his oboe for a saxophone. A commercial tune for Delta Airlnes became an unexpected hit. This sudden popularity inspired Jenkins to compose for the concert hall. One could characterize the style of Jenkins’ oratorios as pop music, but modeled on symphonic music. He can be compared to the ‘classical’ Paul McCartney, although Jenkins has much better grasp of the general structure. The liberality with which Jenkins adapts the ancient Christian texts as he sees fit is also striking, although Brahms, Fauré, Howells and Rutter did the same before him.
(Source: Muziekweb.nl)
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Press

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Videos

Matangi Quartet in Concertgebouw - Track (vedeo made by Checkuit.nl)

Often bought together with..

Joseph Haydn
London Symphonies - Symphonies nos. 97 & 98
Ton Koopman / Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra
Symphony no. 1 (Hamburg 1893 version)
Netherlands Symphony Orchestra / Jan Willem de Vriend
We Take No Prisoners
Joris Teepe Big Band
Quartet Op.12 & Quintet Op.18
Matangi Quartet

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