Première by Matangi Quartet

Franz Schubert, Joseph Haydn

Matangi Quartet

Première

Price: € 18.95
Format: CD
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917216424
Catnr: CC 72164
Release date: 05 June 2006
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Label
Challenge Classics

UPC
0608917216424

Catalogue number
CC 72164

Release date
05 June 2006

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

We are proud to present to you our first CD: Première. recording a first CD is an exciting time; while you are still developing as a quartet you decide to set down what you can do, what you stand for and who you are: a snapshot at the start of a long journey. Still, we are happy with our decision. We believe, in part thanks to the marvellous efforts of our producer and technician Jochem Geene, we have managed to produce a good result: this CD!

When we had decided to record this CD, we were unanimous in our wish that there had to be a piece by our great hero, the father of the string quartet, Joseph Haydn. How we all would have liked to have known him personally. The quartets of Haydn are so multifaceted that they offer a challenge to amateurs and professionals alike. Technically the music often appears simple, but those who look further into these pieces will find one surprise after the other, as well as crazy themes, harmonies and sequences. We have tried to record the Bach-like purity, almost sanctity of this quartet.

The Quartettsatz heralds a new period in Franz Schubert’s quartets. It was, after all, his first piece that was no longer aimed at amateur friends, but required a more professional approach. It is actually Schubert’s unvollendete quartet as it was to be part of a larger piece, which is only seen in the outlines of the second part, an Andante. The piece was composed in 1820 but was not published until 1870. In the intervening years it was in the hands of Johannes Brahms.

This same Brahms was not only mentor, moral help and stay, but also a good friend of Antonín Dvo ̆rák, the composer of the American quartet. The last piece on our CD, which was also called - against Dvo ̆rák’swishes-NegroQuartet,isthemostwell known and widely played of the seventeen quartets thatDvo ̆rákwrote.Thisworkwaswrittenalmost at the same time as the symphony From the New World and consequently shows some similarities with it. Dvo ̆rák had just spent some years living in America in order to give the music world there a new impetus. His visit there is echoed in the various themes of this piece. He subtly mixes negro spiritual themes with Czech folk melodies.
Karsten Kleijer

Het eerste album van het Matangi Quartet
Met trots presenteert het Matangi Quartet hier hun eerste album: Première. Het opnemen van het eerste album is altijd een spannende aangelegenheid; midden in de ontwikkeling die het kwartet doormaakt komt he t besluit om vast te gaan leggen wat ze kunnen, waar ze voor staan en wie ze zijn, een foto aan het begin van een lange reis. Mede dankzij de fantastische inzet van de producer en technicus Jochem Geene is er een mooi resultaat hebben bereikt.

Toen het kwartet besloten had om dit album op te gaan nemen, waren ze het er meteen over eens dat er een werk op moest komen te staan van hun grote held, vader der strijkkwartetten, Joseph Haydn. De kwartetten van Haydn zijn zo veelzijdig dat zowel amateurs als professionals er uitdaging in vinden. Het kwartet heeft getracht de aan Bach grenzende puurheid, bijna heiligheid van dit kwartet vast te leggen.

De Quartettsatz van Franz Schubert luidde een nieuwe periode in binnen zijn kwartetrepertoire. Het was namelijk zijn eerste stuk dat niet meer bedoeld was voor amateurs, maar een meer professionele benadering vereiste. Het stuk is gedateerd rond 1820 maar pas gepubliceerd in 1870. In de tussenliggende jaren was het stuk in bezit van Johannes Brahms.

Deze zelfde Brahms was niet alleen mentor, morele steun en toeverlaat, maar ook een goede vriend van Antonín Dvořák, de componist van het Amerikaanse kwartet. Het laatste stuk op dit album, dat tegen zijn zin ook wel het Negerkwartet werd genoemd, is het bekendste en meest gespeelde van de zeventien kwartetten die Dvořák schreef. Op negro-spirituals gebaseerde thema’s wisselt hij fijnzinnig af met Tsjechische volksmelodieën.

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...

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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Maria-Paula Majoor

Daniel Torrico Menacho

Karsten Kleijer

Nander Cirkel

Composer(s)

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. Schubert already died before his 32nd birthday, but was extremely prolific during his lifetime. His output consists of over six hundred secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of chamber and piano music. Appreciation of his music while he was alive was limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna, but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death. Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and other 19th-century composers discovered and championed his works. Today, Schubert is ranked among the greatest composers of the late Classical and early Romantic eras and is one of the most frequently performed composers of the early nineteenth century.
It was in the genre of the Lied that Schubert made his most indelible mark. Prior to Schubert's influence, Lieder tended toward a strophic, syllabic treatment of text, evoking the folksong qualities engendered by the stirrings of Romantic nationalism. Schubert expanded the potentialities of the genre like no other composer before.

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Joseph Haydn

(Franz) Joseph Haydn was a prolific Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the piano trio and his contributions to musical form have earned him the epithets 'Father of the Symphony' and 'Father of the String Quartet'. Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate. Until the later part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, 'forced to become original'. Yet his music circulated widely and for much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe. He was a friend and mentor of Mozart,...

(Franz) Joseph Haydn was a prolific Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the piano trio and his contributions to musical form have earned him the epithets "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet".
Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate. Until the later part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, "forced to become original". Yet his music circulated widely and for much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe.
He was a friend and mentor of Mozart, a teacher of Beethoven, with whom he formed the First Viennese School. He was also the older brother of composer Michael Haydn.

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