Schubert: Die Gotter Griechenlands D677 (Schiller)

'Thymos': a word that was used by the ancient Greek philosophers to refer to feeling and emotion… And it was the spirit of thymos that brought together the musicians of the eponymous quartet, first-prize winners from the Paris and Lyon Conservatoires and members of the Orchestre de Paris.

The Thymos Quartet, like Calliope, is keenly interested in music of the Viennese school.This recording presents two masterpieces, representing two different periods in the rich history of Viennese music: Franz Schubert's String Quartet No. 13 'Rosamunde', completed in March 1824, and Alban Berg's Lyric Suite, a “suite for string quartet” (Berg's own words), written between September 1925 and October 1926.The latter is Berg's first extended 12-note composition, using the technique that Schoenberg had developed in 1923. In January 1977 the American musicologist George Perle discovered a copy of the score of the Lyric Suite annotated by Berg, in which the composer revealed its secret programme: without that key to the code, the complexities of this work would be indecipherable.The Lyric Suite is the story of a passion, recounting the episodes in the personal drama of an impossible love: that between Berg and Hanna Fuchs-Robettin. The musicians of the Thymos Quartet feel in tune with the aesthetic of this work, which calls for a very subtle balance between individual performance and harmony between all the players. It is a very difficult work to perform and one that is deeply moving for the performers. Schubert's String Quartet No. 13, also a moving work, refers to the inevitability of death; we discover in this composition an almost symphonic expression of violence, and it is also a tragic yet intimate confession. In this quartet Schubert quotes his lieder Gretchen am Spinnrade D118 (text by Goethe) and Schöne Welt, wo bist du? D677 (text by Schiller); Berg's Schliesse mir die Augen beide, to a poem by Theodor Storm, is connected with his Lyric Suite.These songs are therefore presented on this recording in order to give a fuller picture. These songs, as well as the sixth movement of the Lyric Suite, are performed the young soprano Salomé Haller, who was as enchanted by this programme as the musicians of the Thymos Quartet are. The musicians of the Thymos Quartet have played this programme many times.They came to the notice of the conductor Christoph Eschenbach when they presented it at the Théâtre Mogador in Paris, as a result of which he subsequently invited them to the Ravinia Festival (Chicago, USA) where, in August 2005, they performed Alban Berg's Lyric Suite with the Debussy String Quartet and (with Eschenbach at the piano) Dvorak's Piano Quintet (to be recorded on the Calliope label in November 2010).

In 2006 Christoph Eschenbach invited the Thymos Quartet to take part in the Orchestre de Paris's Boulez cycle at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, where they performed Webern's Five Movements, Opus 5, and Berg's Lyric Suite. From that time dates their desire to take their work one step further by recording the latter.

+bonus DVD interviews with Goerne and Metzmacher

Matthias Goerne has received worldwide praise for his warm, fluid baritone and his profound interpretations. Highly respected as a Lieder singer, he is a frequent guest at renowned festivals and prestigious venues like the New York Carnegie Hall and London Wigmore Hall. Famous pianists such as Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Leif Ove Andsnes, Alfred Brendel, Christoph Eschenbach and Elisabeth Leonskaja are among his musical partners. From 2008 to 2011, Matthias Goerne will perform and record the most beautiful songs by Franz Schubert on eleven CDs for Harmonia Mundi, and important venues including the Wigmore Hall will present the complete series of eleven Schubert recitals with Matthias Goerne in the coming seasons.

"It's a journey any singer would leap at: Matthias Goerne is travelling through Schubert's songs with a new recording contract and a series of live recital bookings as far as the eye can see. It's invaluable for a singer in mid-career. " The Times

The pieces selected for this recording mark out the milestones of a brief, rich and critically important career as a song composer, ranging in time from 1814 to 1826.Alongside the classic Schubert themes found here, such as deliverance and night, death, flight from the world and hope, we also encounter poets who were more than merely fixed stars in the composer's cosmos, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the writer he most often set, and Johann Baptist Mayrhofer.We can hear for ourselves a captivating, evocative musical language. It speaks of the constant struggle of an individual, his bitterness, his longing, and his desire for deliverance. Yet, however deeply Schubert bathed in this Romantic current, throughout his life art remained for him the only key that might perhaps lead to a 'better world'.And so, in 1817, he took up a text by his friend Franz von Schober to compose an ode to the all-placating 'blessed art' in An die Musik D547: music, which for Schubert, as he wrote to Schober in 1818, was nothing less than 'my beloved'. Bernarda Fink, has sung in numerous opera productions and has made over fifty recordings with a repertoire ranging from Monteverdi to Brahms and Bruckner, many for harmonia mundi and with René Jacobs. She has been flatteringly referred to as the natural successor to the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and to both [the living] Brigitte Fassbaender and Dame Janet Baker. Gerold Huber studied with Friedemann Berger and Helmut Deutsch in Munich, then attended Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's lied class in Berlin. In addition to his regular appearances with Christian Gerhaher, he also performs with Ruth Ziesak, Cornelia Kallisch, Diana Damrau and Franz-Josef Selig and has also performed with the Artemis Quartet.