Artemis Quartet

Following the Artemis Quartet‘s prizewinning Beethoven Quartet cycle on Virgin Classics, the Berlin-based ensemble has recorded Schubert’s last three quartets, works that Artemis cellist Eckart Runge praises for both their “incredible simplicity and purity” and their “almost terrifying modernism”.

Awarded both Germany‘s prestigious Klassik ECHO award and France’s Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros in 2011 for their Virgin Classics Beethoven cycle, the members of the Artemis Quartet now release an all-Schubert CD. It presents the composer’s final three string quartets: No 13 in A minor, ‘Rosamunde’ (which draws on his incidental music for Helmina von Chezy’s play Rosamunde); No 14 in D minor, ‘Death and the Maiden’ (with its haunting second movement based on his song Der Tod und das Mädchen), and No 15 in G major.

Schubert and Beethoven were contemporaries in Vienna, and Beethoven is reputed to have returned some of the younger composer’s admiration, but, as Eckart Runge, cellist of the Artemis Quartet points out: “In some senses, Beethoven and Schubert could hardly be more different.” He goes on to say that “The Artemis Quartet’s intensive experience of performing and recording the Beethoven cycle between 2009 and 2011 has provided new perspectives on every other quartet we play. There is an almost terrifying modernism in these three late Schubert quartets, but it is totally different from the modernism of Beethoven. And, when placed together in a programme, the three quartets shine in another light: No 14 is concentrated and dramatic; No 15 is huge, symphonic, and cosmic, and No 13 is introspective and melancholy – less spectacular than the other two.

With this release of two early quartets and his last completed quartet, the Artemis Quartet rounds off its Beethoven cycle for Virgin Classics. “His music speaks to every era,” they say, “It is a perfect dialogue between tradition and modernity, and between intellectual refinement and raw emotion,”

Beethoven’s extraordinary musical evolution is traced in the cycle, which remains the touchstone of the quartet repertoire. The Artemis’ passionate engagement with the composer’s music was summarised by Die Zeit: “An ensemble that, when compared to groups on a similar level of perfection, seems to approach the repertoire from another horizon. Many quartets convey an air in their playing of rarefied workmanship and detached refinement from the world. They explore the music within the notes. The members of the Artemis come as people who live life, and life is what they seek in Beethoven too.”

For the Artemis Quartet, Beethoven remains “the most modern, provocative, experimental and boldest composer of all”. The Artemis’ devotion to Beethoven’s towering quartets brings two seasons of concerts around Europe and the US and, in 2011, the release of the complete cycle on Virgin Classics.

The sixth release in the Artemis Quartet’s complete Beethoven cycle comes as the Berlin-based ensemble devotes its international performing schedule to this cornerstone of the repertoire.

“This group finds a balance between projecting musical structure and conveying immediacy,” wrote the New York Times in March 2010. “The players cultivate unity of thought and intention but not conformity of sound and style ... the Beethoven performances the Artemis offered were remarkably cogent and organic. The Quartet in E flat (Op. 127), the first of the five late works, is my favourite of the Beethoven quartets, partly because it is so blithely strange. Artemis captured that quality in an engrossing performance. For example, in the middle of the pensive slow movement the music breaks out into something reminiscent of a sentimental German beer-hall tune complete with an oompah dance riff, qualities impishly conveyed here. The seemingly breezy theme of the finale has astonishing twists embedded in its phrases and harmonies, vividly realized by Artemis”.

Lux Aeterna put Ligeti on the map for the wider public when Stanley Kubrick appropriated it for its unearthly effect in his film 2001, A Space Odyssey. But his music began firmly in his Hungarian roots, and bears a debt to Bartók and Kodály. Both sides of this modern master are heard here.

The Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) was born in Romania of Hungarian Jewish parents. As a Jew living in mid-20th-century central-Europe, Ligeti's early musical training was interrupted by World War II. He was detained in a Nazi labour camp while other members of his family were sent to Auschwitz: only he and his mother survived the War. At the cessation of hostilities Ligeti continued his studies in Budapest until 1956, when the Soviets repressed the Hungarian revolution. He fled to Vienna and, some years later, became an Austrian citizen. Now in the West, Ligeti was free to develop and meet the leading composers in European avant-garde music of the time. Figures like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gottfried Koenig and Herbert Eimert encouraged him to join them at the electronic music studio of Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne. It was the première of his Apparitions in 1960 that launched his international career. The first disc in this set comprises the two string quartets from 1953/54 and 1968 respectively; Ramifications from 1968/69 and the Six Bagatelles from 1953 (these last two recordings are new to CD). The second disc contains a selection of Ligeti's vocal works. Ligeti died in June of 2006 in Vienna and was buried there. He is, perhaps, best known for the various pieces of his music that Stanley Kubrick used in several of his films, notably 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut

Beethoven remains the ultimate test for a string quartet; with their ongoing complete cycle for Virgin Classics, the Artemis Quartet are rising to the challenge.

‘The Artemis String Quartet makes chamber music spectacular: the quartet's playing is polished and precise but at the same time spontaneous, fresh and explosive as though the music is being improvised on the spot. Even the physical motions involved with the bowing are beautifully choreographed to reflect the mood of the music.’ The Enquirer

The Quartet’s debut release on the label in 2005 comprised Beethoven’s op 59/1 and op 95, followed by the second release in 2008 in the cycle bringing together op 59/2, the ‘Razumovsky’ Quartet, and the Quartet op 18/4 and which also introduced the ensemble’s latest members, Gregor Sigl (violin) and Friedemann Weigle (viola). The interpretations were warmly welcomed: in France, the release was named CHOC of the Year by Le Monde de la Musique and was also awarded a Diapason d’Or, while in Germany the recording was chosen as Chamber Music Recording of the Year in the the ECHO Klassik awards of the Deutsche Phono-Akademie. In the UK, the influential Sunday Times singled out the release, praising the “fresh, positive responses” of the Artemis Quartet: “ … their colours are vivid and they are alert to the music’s intent to push all sorts of boundaries to breaking point.”

Beethoven remains the ultimate test for a string quartet; with their ongoing complete cycle for Virgin Classics, the Artemis Quartet are rising to the challenge.

The Quartet’s debut release on the label in 2005 comprised Beethoven’s op 59/1 and op 95, followed by the second release in 2008 in the cycle bringing together op 59/2, the ‘Razumovsky’ Quartet, and the Quartet op 18/4 and which also introduced the ensemble’s latest members, Gregor Sigl (violin) and Friedemann Weigle (viola). The interpretations were warmly welcomed: in France, the release was named CHOC of the Year by Le Monde de la Musique and was also awarded a Diapason d’Or, while in Germany the recording was chosen as Chamber Music Recording of the Year in the the ECHO Klassik awards of the Deutsche Phono-Akademie. In the UK, the influential Sunday Times singled out the release, praising the “fresh, positive responses” of the Artemis Quartet: “ … their colours are vivid and they are alert to the music’s intent to push all sorts of boundaries to breaking point.”

In the UK, BBC Radio 3’s CD Review suggested that the recording (op 59/2 & 18/4) should go to the top of any list of recommendations, while the Daily Telegraph observed that the Artemis “keep romantic expressiveness, dramatic urgency and a classical sense of architecture in fine equilibrium.”

A concert performance of Beethoven’s op 18/4 in the USA in 2008 year prompted the following reaction from the New York Times: “The Artemis has always played with vigor, brilliance and sensitivity. More than that, its performances have had clarity of conception and unfussy directness. All these qualities were abundant on this occasion … Beethoven's Quartet in C minor (Op. 18, No. 4) came across in this incisive and full-bodied performance as the audacious work of a supremely confident young man, especially in a moody menuetto, thick with slinky chromatic lines and wayward harmonies.”

Berlin meets Buenos Aires and it takes five to tango as the Artemis Quartet takes to the floor with Chilean pianist Jacques Ammon for a programme of works by Argentinian legend Astor Piazzolla.

It is perhaps no surprise that Crescendo magazine, reviewing the Artemis Quartet’s recent Virgin Classics CD of Schubert’s C major Quintet with Truls Mørk, said that the performance “could not be highly enough praised“. Perhaps more unexpected is that the Berlin-based string quartet has now joined forces with the Chilean pianist Jacques Ammon for a programme of music by Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992), the Argentinian master of the tango.

Eckart Runge, the Artemis‘ cellist, has in fact been collaborating with Ammon over the past decade to create celloproject, a duo playing the music of Piazzolla, his predecessor Carlos Gardel, and composers from the worlds of jazz (such as Chick Corea) and film (such as Charlie Chaplin and Nino Rota). As Runge says: "In the mid-1980s, when I first heard the music of Astor Piazzolla, little known in Europe at the time ... it was like being struck by lightning. With its almost cruelly shattering immediacy -- reminiscent of Schubert, somewhere between dream-like beauty and deathly sadness – and a refined subtlety between joy and tears, reminiscent of Chaplin, it moved me deeply. Only some years later did I dare to play this music for myself for the first time. Immediately I began to do my best to bring together everything I could find out about this music and its history, and consequently visited Buenos Aires.“

Although tango is understood as a ’popular‘ rather than classical genre, Piazzolla studied with the famed composition teacher Nadia Boulanger and his musical collaborators over the years included figures from jazz and popular music – for instance the saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, the vibraphone player Gary Burton and the Italian chanteuse Milva – and classical musicians such as Salvatore Accardo, Mstislav Rostropovitsch and the Kronos Quartet. His output includes orchestral works, an opera and an oratorio. Perhaps his best-known work features on this disc, the Estaciones Porteñas (Seasons in Buenos Aires), inspired by Vivaldi’s Quattro stagioni and here performed by a piano trio.

Runge explains: “The idea of the Piazzolla Project was to bring the authentic sonic and expressive palette of the tango to life with the inexhaustible possibilities of the string quartet, the piano trio and the piano quintet. Sometimes melting into the melancholy tones of the bandoneon, sometimes breaking out into the raw heterogeneity of the tango quintet, it represented a completely new encounter with sound, rhythm, style and gesture. It was a pleasure for me to share with my quartet colleagues the experience I had gathered over the years in my engagement with this culture. They were enthused by the depth and variety of the tango. For all of us, this music was a great inspiration and it exercised an enriching influence on our involvement with the classical chamber repertoire.”

With their debut release on Virgin Classics in 2005 of Beethoven’s Quartets Opp.59/1 & 95, the Artemis Quartet launched, with promising success, a full Beethoven Quartet cycle for the label. The recording was greeted with great enthusiasm worldwide (in France, CHOC of the Year, Monde de la Musique - Diapason d’Or).

This release of Beethoven’s ‘Razumovsky’ & Quartet 18/4 is the Artemis’ much awaited second step in the projected complete Beethoven cycle - this time in its new grouping with new members Gregor Sigl and Friedemann Weigle, which we discover for the first time in an all-quartet programme, further to their recent release of Schubert’s String Quintet with Truls Mørk.

‘The Artemis String Quartet makes chamber music spectacular: the quartet's playing is polished and precise but at the same time spontaneous, fresh and explosive as though the music is being improvised on the spot. Even the physical motions involved with the bowing are beautifully choreographed to reflect the mood of the music.’ The Enquirer