Artists of Spannungen Festival 2018
Release Date: 11 October 2019
Label: C-Avi
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 4260085531011
Genres: Classical Chamber Music
Description
The first of two live releases from the famous chamber music festival SPANNUNGEN (June, 2018). The focus of this album is Russian String quartets, namely those by Borodin and Tchaikovsky, performed by a variety of performers including Antje Weithaas, Byol Kang and Julian Steckel.
Many Russian instrumental works of the 19th century were based on a programme, and the same holds true of Alexander Borodin's Second String Quartet. Here the underlying subject was the great love he felt for his wife Ekaterina. In 1877, the composer (who was also a doctor and a chemist) travelled to Heidelberg, where he had met her 16 years earlier. In letters he described to her how he was returning to the spots they had visited together, and added: "I would give anything to have you here at my side." Borodin finished writing the D Major Quartet on a date that was likewise symbolic: on 10 August 1881, their twentieth anniversary. (from the liner notes by Mathias Corvin)
Tchaikovsky managed to make ends meet by teaching, until his concert overture The Tempest (1873) drew widespread attention to his talent as a composer. In high spirits after that resounding success, Tchaikovsky euphorically wrote his Second String Quartet in the course of one night in January 1874. This work is even more elaborate and mature than the more well-known First String Quartet, with which he had attempted to supplement his meager professor's salary in 1871. He certainly had less trouble composing the Second Quartet: "I regard it as my best work; no other piece has poured forth from me so simply and easily. I wrote it almost in one sitting." Musical connections with Mozart's string quartets are already evident in the first movement. (from the line notes Pedro Obiera)
Artists: Borodin Byol Kang - violin Anna Reszniak - violin Julian Steckel - cello Barbara Buntrock – viola
Tchaikovsky Antje Weithaas – violin Byol Kang - violin Timothy Ridout - viola Tanje Tetzlaff - cello
Tracklisting
Katharina Konradi, Catriona Morison, Ammiel Bushakevitz
Antje Weithaas, Denes Varjon
Premysl Vojta, Florence Millet, Ye Wu
Herbert Schuch, WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne
Sandrine Cantoreggi & Sheila Arnold
Nino Gvetadze
Daniel Heide
Antje Weithaas & Denes Varjon
Artists of Spannungen Festival 2018
