Early String Quartets by Narratio Quartet

Ludwig van Beethoven

Narratio Quartet

Early String Quartets

Price: € 28.95
Format: CD
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917296921
Catnr: CC 72969
Release date: 03 May 2024
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Label
Challenge Classics

UPC
0608917296921

Catalogue number
CC 72969

Release date
03 May 2024

"We cannot entertain the pretense that we are recreating the past, that we are somehow closer to the composer's intentions than earlier generations. Just listen! These people also tried to honor the music they loved so much and to bring it to life for their audiences. We are all trying to honor the music the best way we can by using the tools we feel to be most appropriate. - Johannes Leertouwer"

Fanfare Magazine, 01-11-2024

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

Press

About the album

Viola de Hoog: I have often wondered which of the “great spirits” might provide a new impulse and a different direction for what we call classical music in this early part of the twenty-first century. Narratio Quartet have been immersed in all of Beethoven’s string quartets for over fifteen years now. We experience time and again how Beethoven explored and then overcame the limits of the Classical style and the instrumental difficulties that were prevalent at the start of the nineteenth century. What we hear has been enriched by the passing of two centuries and the gaining of wider experience. Progress indeed, might be your first thought, but perhaps we have also lost something along the way? The ability to feel how groundbreaking and visionary this music was in those days. My colleagues and I feel that using instruments that are comparable to those of the time has helped us enormously in getting somewhat closer to the surprise, the bewilderment and the rapture that the musicians in Schuppanzigh’s quartet must have felt when they first came face to face with the newest and most innovative chamber music of the day.

Viola de Hoog: Ich habe mich oft gefragt, welcher der "großen Geister" einen neuen Impuls und eine andere Richtung für das geben könnte, was wir zu Beginn des einundzwanzigsten Jahrhunderts klassische Musik nennen. Das Narratio Quartett beschäftigt sich nun schon seit über fünfzehn Jahren mit allen Streichquartetten Beethovens. Wir erleben immer wieder, wie Beethoven die Grenzen des klassischen Stils und die instrumentalen Schwierigkeiten, die zu Beginn des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts vorherrschten, erforscht und dann überwunden hat. Was wir hören, ist durch zwei Jahrhunderte und den Zugewinn an Erfahrung bereichert worden. Fortschritt in der Tat, könnte Ihr erster Gedanke sein, aber vielleicht haben wir auf diesem Weg auch etwas verloren? Die Fähigkeit zu spüren, wie bahnbrechend und visionär diese Musik damals war. Meine Kollegen und ich sind der Meinung, dass die Verwendung von Instrumenten, die mit denen der damaligen Zeit vergleichbar sind, uns enorm dabei geholfen hat, der Überraschung, der Verblüffung und der Begeisterung etwas näher zu kommen, die die Musiker in Schuppanzighs Quartett empfunden haben müssen, als sie zum ersten Mal mit der neuesten und innovativsten Kammermusik der damaligen Zeit konfrontiert wurden,

Artist(s)

Narratio Quartet

Het verhaal van het Narratio Quartet begon in 2009 toen het op uitnodiging van het Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht de vijf laatste kwartetten van Beethoven uitvoerde op vijf achtereenvolgende avonden in het festival. Juist deze late Beethoven kwartetten worden maar zelden gespeeld op oude instrumenten met darmsnaren en 19e-eeuwse strijkstokken. Sindsdien werkte het Narratio Quartet als het ware van achter naar voor; het speelde de complete serie Beethoven kwartetten inmiddels meerdere malen in Nederland en recent ook in Zwitserland. Het repertoire is inmiddels uitgebreid naar de latere 19e eeuw door middel van de drie Brahms kwartetten in combinatie met Schubert, Schumann en Mendelssohn. In de loop van 2024/2025 zal bij Challenge Records hun opname van de complete Beethoven Cyclus gespeeld...

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Johannes Leertouwer (violin)

Johannes Leertouwer is chief conductor and artistic director of the recently formed Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht.
In September of 2009, he conducted this orchestra in an exciting and much praised debut which featured a program of Stravinsky and Ravel and he will continue to lead the NPU in a series of concerts and special projects in the coming years. The orchestra performs on period instruments as well as repertoire of the nineteenth- and early twentieth century. It also features an extensive educational program, and therefore clearly carries the signature of its chief conductor.
Johannes Leertouwer studied conducting with David Porcelijn and the legendary Finnish professor Jorma Panula, He has worked as guest conductor with various orchestras, such as the Noord Nederlands Orkest, choir and orchestra of the Netherlands Bach Society. He has also worked with orchestras in Belgium, France, Japan and Mexico. From 1989 to 2006 he was artistic director and conductor of the Netherlands Youth String Orchestra, and also conducted various projects at European conservatories in Paris, Antwerp, Leipzig and Amsterdam.
After studying violin with Bouw Lemkes in Amsterdam and Josef Suk in Vienna and Prague, Johannes Leertouwer decided to specialize in historical performance practice. He worked as concertmaster and soloist with a number of international period instrument ensembles and orchestras, such as Anima Eterna, and the orchestra and choir of the Nederlandse Bach Vereniging.
Together with his duo partners Menno van Delft (harpsichord) and Julian Reynolds (fortepiano) he has made a series of CD recordings on the Globe label which feature works by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann. With the Schönbrunn Ensemble, of which he has been a member since its founding in 1987, he performs both in the Netherlands and abroad. He has also made a series of CD’s with this ensemble, the most recent of which contains works of Graf, Reicha and Ries. In 2006, the Mozart year, Johannes Leertouwer was the soloist and conductor in a highly acclaimed CD-recording of the complete works for violin and orchestra by Mozart (Challenge).
Since 1989 he has been a professor of violin at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. He gives masterclasses and guest teaches in many countries both within and outside of Europe. As a conductor he is able to draw not only on his years of experience with the ensembles and orchestras that are leading the way in historical performance practice, but also on his experience in Romantic and twentieth-century orchestral practice. Already during his violin studies he worked with world famous conductors such as Haitink, Abbado, Bernstein and Harnoncourt.
Johannes Leertouwer is a conductor with a broad repertoire and an exceptionally acute consciousness of style. From his specialization, the Viennese Classics, he has built up his repertoire without limiting himself to any particular style period. Among the works he has conducted are Sibelius’ Symphony No.5, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion; he has also conducted world premieres of works by Patricio Wang, Maurice Horsthuis, Frank Agsteribbe and others.

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Viola de Hoog (cello)

Franc Polman (violin)

Dorothea Vogel (viola)

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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Press

We cannot entertain the pretense that we are recreating the past, that we are somehow closer to the composer's intentions than earlier generations. Just listen! These people also tried to honor the music they loved so much and to bring it to life for their audiences. We are all trying to honor the music the best way we can by using the tools we feel to be most appropriate. - Johannes Leertouwer
Fanfare Magazine, 01-11-2024

...the quartet inaugurates its Beethoven series with a bold and fresh approach to musical freedom. All manner of flexibility ensures an aesthetic eschewing of strict teleology in favor of fluidity, as each moment embodies the fresh and multifarious contexts that made Beethoven's accomplishments so daring in the first place. Reauditioning renders it all remarkably coherent and, consequently, a more than worthwhile endeavor.
Fanfare Magazine, 01-11-2024

This release is so remarkable that it might well make you think about Beethoven's op. 18 set of string quartets in a completely new light. Study of performance techniques of the time results in interpretations that seem completely fresh. ...the Narratio Quartet's point of view on Beethoven's timeless masterpieces is not just a thoroughly researched one, but a compellingly convincing one, too. If you thought you knew these six quartets, think again.
Fanfare Magazine, 01-11-2024

The lack of vibrato gives the music a starker, more brusque sound. To my surprise, I found it to be an appealing alternative to the modern instrument versions I know. And so it goes throughout the remainder of the quartets.
Fanfare Magazine, 01-11-2024

These are all exceptionally characterful performances, featuring commanding technical capability combined with clearly carefully considered decisions informed by rigorous historical research. I can easily imagine these new recordings becoming the yardstick by which similarly historically informed interpretations will be judged.
Fanfare Magazine, 01-11-2024

...the Narratio Quartet members fully succeed in their aim. They engender a great deal of interest and enjoyment in what they do (and what they do not do) to bring to life these wonderful pieces through a strongly projected, sharply focused, period lens.
Fanfare Magazine, 01-11-2024

The Narratio Quartet finds a wonderful sense of pacing in their playing, with a rhythmic fluidity that is very natural and highly ingratiating.
Fanfare Magazine, 01-11-2024

As Viola de Hoog, cellist of the quartet, explains, they have been playing the Beethoven Quartets for 15 years (2009-2024), and now, finally, they have recorded them. They are splendidly engraved, I anticipate; In addition to being presented soberly, which is appreciated, given so many colorful covers or affected poses.
Ritmo, 01-10-2024

The Narratio Quartet offer eminently civilized, thoughtful and aristocratic readings of this opus 18. Indeed, this is a well-proportioned, balanced and articulate reading, showing an understanding and depth of feeling that is rare. The integration and intonation are impeccable; without a doubt, the vigor of its touch and the energy it generates are qualities that cannot fail to surprise the listener. The four instrumentalists, with the technique used with commendable moderation and always with sensitivity, achieve an extraordinary effect.
Sonograma, 29-7-2024

The Narratio are most satisfying in the first and second quartets, and No 2 is especially lovely for its lightness of touch and rhythmic point.
Gramophone, 01-7-2024

...there is much to enjoy in the quartet's poised and stylish playing, which acquires real passion at the amazing climax of the second movement of No. 1 in F.
BBC Music Magazine, 01-7-2024

...the Narratios have for me captured the youthful essence and spirit of the six quartets to as near ideal an extent as can be humanly expected. Perhaps above all, it is the manner in which the wit and humour are embraced, a characteristic so frequently missing by those that would have Beethoven elevated to some kind of spiritual status.
Early Music Review, 26-6-2024

The Quartets op. 18 by Beethoven performed by the Narratio Quartet: Disc CHALLENGE CLASSICS CC-72969 (3 CD): L. ven Beethoven / EARLY STRING QUARTET / Narratio Quartet
Rai Radio 3, 14-6-2024