Landscapes: Haydn, Takemitsu, Bartók & Pärt

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Here's another enlightened programme from the young German Schumann Quartet...Haydn's Sunrise is freshly radiant in their hands, the Menuett almost swung with an elastic rhythmic bounce, the... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2017, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 24th Mar 2017
Catalogue No: 0300836BC
Label: Berlin Classics
Length: 65 minutes

BBC Music Magazine

August 2017

Chamber Choice
Schallplattenkritik Awards

2017

Winner - Jahrespreis

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Haydn: String Quartet, Op. 76 No. 4 in B flat major 'Sunrise'

Work length21:02

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Schumann Quartett

I. Allegro con spirito

Track length7:48

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II. Adagio

Track length5:20

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

III. Menuet. Allegro

Track length3:41

$1.00

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$1.75

IV. Finale. Allegro ma non troppo

Track length4:13

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Takemitsu: Landscape I for string quartet

Work length7:46

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Schumann Quartett

Bartók: String Quartet No. 2, Sz 67 (Op. 17)

Work length26:28

$7.00

$9.05

$12.25

Schumann Quartett

I. Moderato

Track length10:17

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

II. Allegro molto capriccioso

Track length7:33

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III. Lento

Track length8:38

$2.00

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$3.50

Pärt: Fratres for String Quartet

Work length10:20

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

Schumann Quartett

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Berlin Classics is proud to present the Schumann Quartet, winners of the BBC Music Magazine 2016 Newcomer award.

“Landscapes” is a journey in sound to the roots of the Schumann Quartet, a foursome made up of the three brothers Erik, Ken and Mark Schumann and the viola player Liisa Randalu. Four very different works contribute their personal stories to form a magical whole. At the album’s hub is Arvo Pärt’s composition “Fratres”, meaning “brothers”. The Schumann Quartet rehearsed the work with Pärt in Viimsi in Estonia and recorded it there. The personal contact with the composer came through Pärt’s Estonian compatriot Liisa Randalu.

The biographical and contextual links that are particularly evident in this piece, while influencing the whole choice of works in this Berlin Classics debut, are almost incidental to the instinctive companionship of the quartet’s members. The Schumann Quartet was founded about five years ago, but its unique playing culture means it already has an international reputation as one of the best quartets around. “One look, and I know how he/she would like to play the music at that moment,” says Ken Schumann about the mystical communion within the ensemble. It is this intuitive exchange between one another and the wish to raise this communication to the maximum degree, “to see what the tension and our joint spontaneity can take,” that makes the quartet so exceptional and that has been captured on “Landscapes”. The Schumann Quartet find that the only way they can really project a work is live, “because all sense of imitation is gone and you are automatically true to yourself”, and so the recordings of Joseph Haydn’s “Sunrise” Quartet op. 76/4, Tōru Takemitsu’s “Landscape I for string quartet” and Béla Bartók’s Second String Quartet, Sz. 67 were recorded in June 2016 as a studio concert in front of an audience in the Bauer Studios in Ludwigsburg. “Fratres” was recorded one month later after an intensive series of rehearsals with Arvo Pärt in the Lutheran Church of St James in Viimsi, Estonia.

In line with the backgrounds of the quartet’s four members (the Schumann brothers are German, of Romanian-Japanese origin) the pieces on this album come from those various parts of the world: the album is a compilation of Estonian, Japanese, Hungarian and Austro-German works. The collection of pieces is tied together with the ribbon of “Landscapes” and is an integral part of the Schumann Quartet’s live programme. Magical associations.

Reviews

August 2017

Here's another enlightened programme from the young German Schumann Quartet...Haydn's Sunrise is freshly radiant in their hands, the Menuett almost swung with an elastic rhythmic bounce, the Finale a rollercoaster of surprises...[In the Bartók] the Moderato's contrapuntal conversation is exquisitely voiced and sung, underpinned by cellist Mark Schumann's deeply refined artistry.

Diapason May 2017

The young German ensemble give a svelte, purified, dynamic reading…movement after movement, one remains attentive to how they delineate the melodies with such liberties as good taste will allow

9th April 2017

[The Pärt is] an exercise in variable scoring, more spirit than body, and its evanescent repetitions contrast with the opening confidence of Haydn’s Sunrise quartet and with Bartok’s Quartet No 2, but complement Takemitsu’s Landscape I.

Landscapes: Haydn, Takemitsu, Bartók & Pärt

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