Special Arrangements by Fransiscus Quartet

Various composers

Fransiscus Quartet

Special Arrangements

Price: € 12.95
Format: CD
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917217629
Catnr: CC 72176
Release date: 10 September 2007
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Label
Challenge Classics

UPC
0608917217629

Catalogue number
CC 72176

Release date
10 September 2007

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Though seemingly incongruous, a common thread runs through the compositions on this CD: none of them was originally conceived for string quartet. One would search in vain through most ‘complete’ box sets of Haydn, Beethoven and Shostakovich string quartets for the titles included on this CD. And yet in the case of Beethoven and Shostakovich, the composer himself made the arrangements, transforming earlier compositions with the full intention of creating worthy additions to the string quartet repertoire. The Franciscus Quartet demonstrates its multi-faceted nature: at home with the Viennese classics but not afraid of a brief foray into the passionate world of the Argentinian Tango! From a historical standpoint the selections by Haydn, Beethoven and Shostakovich are naturally the most interesting.

Arrangementen voor strijkkwartet
Ondanks dat deze werken op het eerste oog weinig met elkaar te maken hebben, is er wel degelijk een rode draad op dit album: al deze werken waren oorspronkelijk namelijk niet voor een strijkkwartet gecomponeerd. De meeste werken op dit album zijn bewerkt voor strijkkwartet door verschillende arrangeurs. De werken van Beethoven en Sjostakovitsj, echter, zijn gearrangeerd door de componisten zelf, met het doel het strijkkwartetrepertoire verder te verrijken. Het album brengt verschillende werken van Astor Piazzolla, Ludwig von Beethoven, Dmitri Sjostakovitsj, Antonin Dvorák, Joseph Haydn Luis Gianneo en Franz Schubert ten gehore. Ondanks dat een aantal van de melodieën van deze werken bekend zijn, vormen deze arrangementen unieke, intieme werken zoals deze maar zelden uitgevoerd worden.

Dit album is een voorbeeld van de veelzijdigheid van het repertoire van het Franciscus Kwartet met werken van zowel de Weense Klassieken als Haydn en Beethoven en muziek van de Argentijnse tangocomponist Astor Piazzolla. Het Franciscus Kwartet is een van de meest succesvolle strijkkwartetten van Nederland en wordt internationaal geprezen om zijn fascinerende en intense uitvoeringen en interessante repertoirekeuzes. Die vier leden spelen elk ook in een Nederlandse toporkest. Gezamenlijk hebben ze al acht albums als strijkkwartet uitgebracht.

Artist(s)

Franciscus Quartet

As one of Holland's leading string quartets, the Franciscus Quartet enjoys international acclaim for its captivating, intense playing and its interesting choice of programs. The four musicians are all active members in the Dutch radio orchestras. The quartet has a busy concert agenda and is regularly aired on the radio. They have performed in prestigious halls such as the Kleine Zaal of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam (season 2001-2002, a Spanish evening with Boccherini, Arriaga, Turina and a Sunday Morning Concert with Bach, Haydn, Mendelssohn), Muziekcentrum Vredenburg, De Doelen and the Muziekcentrum of Eindhoven. In 1999 the quartet performed a concert with Jessye Norman in the Grote Zaal of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with works of Chausson and Ellington. On invitation from the Bayerische Rundfunk, the Franciscus Quartet performed in Munich and they appeared for Südwestfunk Baden-Baden in the Schwetzinger Festspiele in 2002. The quartet also toured to England and Lithuania, performing at festivals in Kaunas and Vilnius and to Curacao with appearances at the Tertulia Musikal Festival. While there they performed a series of 12 educational school concerts, exposing 2000 children to classical chamber music for the first time. The Franciscus Quartet has released eight CD's, the first of these in cooperation with the Dutch Radio AVRO.

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Diana Morris

Pamela Kubik

Frank Brakkee

Sebastiaan van Eck

Composer(s)

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include nine symphonies, five piano concertos, one violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. Together with Mozart and Haydn, he was part of the First Viennese School. Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn, and gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost totally deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose; many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life.

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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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Luis Gianneo

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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