account
basket
Challenge Records Int. logo
Bartok - Kurtag - Ligeti: String Quartets
Béla Bartók, György Kurtág, György Ligeti

Armida Quartett

Bartok - Kurtag - Ligeti: String Quartets

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: CAvi
UPC: 4260085532988
Catnr: AVI 8553298
Release date: 10 January 2014
Buy
1 CD
✓ in stock
€ 19.95
Buy
 
Label
CAvi
UPC
4260085532988
Catalogue number
AVI 8553298
Release date
10 January 2014
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)

About the album

Artist(s)

Armida Quartet

ARMIDA QUARTETT Martin Funda Violin Johanna Staemmler Violin Teresa Schwamm Viola Peter-Philipp Staemmler Cello A triumph, both technically and musically. BBC Music Magazine, March 2021 Winning the ARD International Competition in 2012 (also sweeping all other prizes including the audience prize) propelled the Armida Quartet on to the international concert platform. After concerts and radio recordings as BBC New Generation Artists (2014-16) and subsequently as ECHO Rising Stars (2016/17), the musicians have established themselves as regular guests in the best-known chamber music halls in Europe, Asia, and the USA. In addition to regular appearances at European festivals such as the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the Rheingau Musik Festival, the quartet has enjoyed great success at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonie, and London‘s Wigmore Hall, among others. Acclaimed for their musical unity, which is evident in...
more
ARMIDA QUARTETT Martin Funda Violin Johanna Staemmler Violin Teresa Schwamm Viola Peter-Philipp Staemmler Cello A triumph, both technically and musically. BBC Music Magazine, March 2021 Winning the ARD International Competition in 2012 (also sweeping all other prizes including the audience prize) propelled the Armida Quartet on to the international concert platform. After concerts and radio recordings as BBC New Generation Artists (2014-16) and subsequently as ECHO Rising Stars (2016/17), the musicians have established themselves as regular guests in the best-known chamber music halls in Europe, Asia, and the USA.
In addition to regular appearances at European festivals such as the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the Rheingau Musik Festival, the quartet has enjoyed great success at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonie, and London‘s Wigmore Hall, among others.
Acclaimed for their musical unity, which is evident in their fine-tuned sound and timing as well as their shared breaths, the musicians also emphasise their commitment to quartet playing with their choice of ensemble name: Armida refers to an opera by the composer Joseph Haydn, who is considered the „father of the string quartet“. They studied with former members of the Artemis Quartet and with Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet); they owe further important impulses to Reinhard Goebel, Alfred Brendel, Marek Janowski, and Tabea Zimmermann.
The Armida Quartet places a special focus on the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The recently released third album of the on-going complete recordings of his string quartets for CAvi Records was praised as „musically ravishing and sonically (...) exemplary“, and described as ground-breaking for Mozart interpretation in the 21st century (Klassik Heute 1/2021).
The ensemble pursues its passion for Mozart, among other things, in its own concert series Mozart Exploded, in which each of the composer‘s string quartets are combined with masterpieces of contemporary music and occasionally presented in experimental concert formats in Berlin.
The series has already been enthusiastically received in New York as well. In addition, the young musicians have cooperated with G. Henle Verlag, for whom they act as musical advisors for the new Urtext edition of the Mozart quartets, including their own fingerings and bowings made available for the associated Henle Library App. In doing so, the quartet is not only at the forefront of the latest technological developments, but also advocates for closer collaboration between performing artists and musicologists.
Whether in its curatorial functions or on stage, collaboration with other artists is a priority for the Armida Quartet. They have a special relationship with the Serbian composer Marko Nikodijevi´c, whose first and second String Quartets they premiered. In the meantime, however, musicians such as Thomas Hampson, Martin Fröst, Tabea Zimmermann, Jörg Widmann, Julian Steckel, Sabine Meyer, and Daniel Müller-Schott have also become regular partners. In addition, the ensemble gives master classes in Germany as well as abroad and is committed to social and educational institutions, including initiatives such as Rhapsody in School and Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now.
Along with the three albums of Mozart string quartets already released, the quartet‘s discography also includes their debut CD with works by Béla Bartók, György Ligeti, and György Kurtág (CAvi), released in 2013, which was included in the German Record Prize‘s Best List. A recording with works by Beethoven and Shostakovich was also released by CAvi in 2016, followed in 2017 by Fuga Magna with works by Scarlatti, Bach, Goldberg, Mozart, and Beethoven.
The quartet has also participated in various compilations of contemporary works by Samy Moussa, Ursula Mamlok, Birke J. Bertelsmeier, and Milica Djordjevi´c, among others.

less

Composer(s)

Béla Bartók

Next to Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók was a third seminal innovator of European art music at the start of the twentieth century. Bartók, too, sought a way out of the deadlock of tonal music around 1900, and he found it in folk music. Initially, he tied in with the nationalistic tradition of Franz Liszt with his tone poem Kossuth, but eventually he found his own voice with the rediscovery of the music of Hungarian peasants. Together with Zoltán Kodály he was one of the first to apply the results of folkloric research into his own compositions. One major difference between him and composers of the 19th century, was that Bartók did not adjust to the system of tonality, but created...
more
Next to Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók was a third seminal innovator of European art music at the start of the twentieth century. Bartók, too, sought a way out of the deadlock of tonal music around 1900, and he found it in folk music. Initially, he tied in with the nationalistic tradition of Franz Liszt with his tone poem Kossuth, but eventually he found his own voice with the rediscovery of the music of Hungarian peasants. Together with Zoltán Kodály he was one of the first to apply the results of folkloric research into his own compositions. One major difference between him and composers of the 19th century, was that Bartók did not adjust to the system of tonality, but created his own musical idiom from folk music. Because of this, his composition style was flexible to other musical trends, without having to violate his own view points. For example, his two Violin sonates come close to Schoenberg's free expressionism, and after 1926 his music started to show neoclassicistic tendencies, comparable to Stravinsky's music. Bartók was not just interested in Hungarian folk music, but could appreciate musical folklore from all of the Balkan, Turkey and North-Africa as well.
less

György Ligeti

György Ligeti is considered as one of the most important representatives of the postwar avant garde, next to Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciana Berio and Iannis Xenakis. While the science fiction classic 2001: A Space Oddyssey created publicity for Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra in particular, most of the impressive music comes from Ligeti's Atmosphères and his Requiem. Ligeti's somber sounds could also be applied to happier things: in his obscene and death-defying opera Le Grand Macabre he would mock the horroreffects of experimental music in a hilarious manner.  Ligeti's maniac experiments often exceeded the human measure (think of his virtuoso Etudes for piano). Perhaps his most consequent work is the purely mechanic Poème Symphonique for 100 ticking metronomes. Legend goes that its première was recorded only to...
more

György Ligeti is considered as one of the most important representatives of the postwar avant garde, next to Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciana Berio and Iannis Xenakis. While the science fiction classic 2001: A Space Oddyssey created publicity for Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra in particular, most of the impressive music comes from Ligeti's Atmosphères and his Requiem. Ligeti's somber sounds could also be applied to happier things: in his obscene and death-defying opera Le Grand Macabre he would mock the horroreffects of experimental music in a hilarious manner.

Ligeti's maniac experiments often exceeded the human measure (think of his virtuoso Etudes for piano). Perhaps his most consequent work is the purely mechanic Poème Symphonique for 100 ticking metronomes. Legend goes that its première was recorded only to be archived with the note: never to be broadcasted again!


less

György Kurtág

The musical language of the 20th-century Hungarian composer and pianist György Kurtág refers on the one hand to the spontaneity of Bartók and on the other hand to the concentration of Webern. Kurtágs time in Paris in 1957-1958 was of vital importance to the origin of this language. There he studied with Messiaen and Milhaud, he examined and copied the works of Webern, and he received therapy from the psychologist Marianne Stein, who helped him recover from his depression and stimulated his creativity. The first composition he wrote after his return to Budapest, the String Quartet, was his first work in his own style, which he regarded as his Opus 1. In the 1980’s Kurtág gained international recognition for the first...
more
The musical language of the 20th-century Hungarian composer and pianist György Kurtág refers on the one hand to the spontaneity of Bartók and on the other hand to the concentration of Webern. Kurtágs time in Paris in 1957-1958 was of vital importance to the origin of this language. There he studied with Messiaen and Milhaud, he examined and copied the works of Webern, and he received therapy from the psychologist Marianne Stein, who helped him recover from his depression and stimulated his creativity. The first composition he wrote after his return to Budapest, the String Quartet, was his first work in his own style, which he regarded as his Opus 1.
In the 1980’s Kurtág gained international recognition for the first time with his Messages of the Late Miss R.V. Troussova, and his creativity increased, which resulted in several international commissions. Since the 1990’s Kurtág has frequently worked abroad. He was amongst others composer in residence at the Berlin Philharmonic and lived a few years in Paris, where he collaborated with the Ensemble InterContemporain.
Next to his activities as a composer and pianist, Kurtág taught piano and chamber music at the Ferenc Liszt Academy from 1967 until 1993, which led him to write short pedagogical piano works, collected in the still ongoing compendium Játékok (Games), which consists of nine volumes at the moment. Kurtág and his wife Márta regularly perform a selection of pieces from this collection.

less

Press

Play album Play album
01.
Bartok: Quartett für 2 Violinen, Viola und Violoncello: Allegro
05:42
02.
Bartok: Quartett für 2 Violinen, Viola und Violoncello: Prestissimo, con sordino
02:52
03.
Bartok: Quartett für 2 Violinen, Viola und Violoncello: Non troppo lento
05:27
04.
Bartok: Quartett für 2 Violinen, Viola und Violoncello: Allegretto pizzicato
02:42
05.
Bartok: Quartett für 2 Violinen, Viola und Violoncello: Allegro molto
05:22
06.
Kurták: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello Op. 1: Poco agitato
00:54
07.
Kurták: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello Op. 1: Con moto
01:31
08.
Kurták: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello Op. 1: Vivacissimo – Lento
02:56
09.
Kurták: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello Op. 1: Con spirito
01:46
10.
Kurták: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello Op. 1: Molto ostinato
02:02
11.
Kurták: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello Op. 1: Adagio
04:14
12.
Ligeti: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello No. 1: Allegro grazioso
01:27
13.
Ligeti: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello No. 1: Vivace, capriccioso
01:55
14.
Ligeti: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello No. 1: Adagio, mesto
02:06
15.
Ligeti: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello No. 1: Presto
01:10
16.
Ligeti: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello No. 1: Prestissimo
01:44
17.
Ligeti: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello No. 1: Andante tranquillo
02:54
18.
Ligeti: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello No. 1
00:00
19.
Ligeti: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello No. 1: Subito prestissimo
01:28
20.
Ligeti: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello No. 1: Allegretto, un poco gioviale
02:45
21.
Ligeti: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello No. 1: Prestissimo
01:37
22.
Ligeti: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello No. 1: Ad libitum, senza misura
01:40
23.
Ligeti: Quartet for two Violins, Viola and Cello No. 1: Lento
00:46
show all tracks

You might also like..

Waiting for a Summer Storm
Ramon van Merkenstein Trio
Waiting for a Summer Storm (vinyl)
Ramon van Merkenstein Trio
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piano Concertos Nos. 21 & 9 | Rondo for Piano and Orchestra
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra | Dejan Lazić | Jan Willem de Vriend
Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonatas Op. 2
Roberto Prosseda
Various composers
Srikandi
Duo Saraswati
Max Richter
Max Richter Remixed
Trio Fibonacci
Frédéric Chopin
A private story | Piano Works
Lestari Scholtes
Throws
Scott Fields String Feartet
Folklore
Stefan Schöler Trio
Enlightened
Bernhard Wiesinger
Douwe Eisenga, JacobTV, Kypski
Building Bridges
Syrène Saxophone Quartet
Northwest
Jan Gunnar Hoff | Jasper Somsen | Carsten Lindholm