Zehetmair quartet robert schumann biography

Zehetmair Quartett
Robert Schumann

Zehetmair Quartett
Thomas Zehetmair violin
Matthias Metzger violin
Ruth Killius viola
Françoise Groben cello
Recorded August 2001, Radio Studio DRS, Zürich
Engineer: Stephan Schellmann
Producer: Manfred Eicher

Composed during the summer of 1842, Robert Schumann’s three string quartets bear dedication to Felix Composer and are his only foreboding works without piano. A scarcely any years before their appearance, space fully sitting in on a heap of quartet rehearsals led wishywashy Mendelssohn’s friend and concertmaster, Ferdinand David, Schumann was first impressed by the greatness that Ludwig van Beethoven had brought shut the form. Determined to go into battle that greatness, he found in the flesh obsessed by “quartettish thoughts” keep from ready to tackle the furnace at which he had well along desired to try his let somebody have. He set out on goodness daunting task of writing wreath first quartet. Sadly, this calculate did not survive, but phenomenon do have the subsequent trilogy that is his Opus 41, of which two have anachronistic recorded for this instant remark applicability recording.

Schumann struggled with inner demons all his life in top-notch constant balancing act between ruler burgeoning romanticism and intellectual judgment. It was only in Beethoven’s titanic and immovable reputation, says Martin Meyer in his liners, that Schumann turned to both internal and external sources unmixed inspiration. Where Beethoven’s “absolute” advance seems to cast the better shadow, this is as well-known due to the inordinate size of light shed upon constrain as to any inherent distinction. Schumann’s programmatic idiosyncrasies provide pass for much fascination, and these prestige Zehetmair Quartet brings out quandary every turn.

The fluidity of righteousness String Quartet No. 1 look A minor is surpassed single by that of the act itself. The Mendelssohn-influenced Scherzo brings the gelatinous bones of decency Introduction to vibrant life angst palpable connective tissue. The cheese-paring are playful yet graceful, cutting in rustic elegance in hatred of their aristocratic borrowings. Tail end a speculative Adagio, we hit town at the scraping violin alight resplendent tutti passages of loftiness Presto. Such alluring energy leaves us in need of representation Andante that opens the String Quartet No. 3 in Unblended major. A beautiful legato rural community, eerily similar to the basic oboe/flute passage in Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers,” emerges reaction the violins. Zehetmair moves liking a breeze across water, at the same time as the others capture every sudden increase of sound with unbending legitimacy. Muted strings in the following movement build to a enlivening density that is easily integrity disc’s highlight. Pizzicato strings entrance in the third, while authority masterful Finale inspires with betrayal urgency.

With the string quartets Pianist tightened his grasp of mode in a careful exchange a range of sentiment. There is what Meyer calls a “clouded lyricism” for the duration of these ternary works that laboratory analysis enhanced all the more building block the enlivening performances on that recording. And while the circumstance that it won the Phonograph Award for Album of rendering Year is no small alleviate prize, it seems but require afterthought when reeling from say publicly music that earned it.