Quatuor Mosaïques in New York

アーノンクールの Concentus Musicus Wienの団員によって結成されたピリオド楽器の弦楽四重奏団，Quatuor Mosaïques が，久し振りにニューヨークで演奏会を開いて話題になっています．

日本でも王子ホールやトッパンホールが1年おき位に数度招聘していましたが，最近は，ご無沙汰です．

現在のメンバーとそれぞれの使用楽器は，
Erich Höbarth (violin, J. Guarnerius filius Andreae, Cremona 1705)
Andrea Bischof (violin, 18th century French)
Anita Mitterer (viola, Girolamo Devirchis, Brescia 1588)
Christophe Coin (cello, C.A. Testore, Milano 1758)
です．

New York では，the 92nd Street Y で少し腰を据えて2週間の間に複数の演奏会を開いたようです．
The group has ranked among the world’s foremost string quartets since shortly after its founding in 1985, balancing period instruments and historically informed performance practice with contemporary interpretive impulses like no other.
とその評価の高さを述べています．

当夜のプログラムは，
Haydn’s Quartet in G minor (Op. 20, No. 3)
Mozart’s Quartet in B flat (K. 458, “Hunt”)
Beethoven's final Quartet No. 16 in F (Op. 135)
そして，アンコールに
the Cavatina from Beethoven’s Quartet No. 13 in B flat (Op. 130)
を演奏したといいます．

すごく聴きたいプログラムですね．

From a start in Haydn’s fundamentals Beethoven proceeded to erect mountains, wrestle demons and gaze on eternity within the sublime sprawl of his late quartets.
と簡潔にString Quartet の発展を展望しています．

あとは，どうぞご自由に，ご渉猟下さい．

 

 

Music Review

Vigorous Interpretations of Sounds Both Old and New

Quatuor Mosaïques at the 92nd Street Y

By STEVE SMITH

Published: April 22, 2012

“In a mosaic each detail appears splendidly conceived,” the cellist Christophe Coin wrote in the booklet notes for a recording of string quartets by Beethoven as performed by the Quatuor Mosaïques, the sterling Austrian ensemble of which Mr. Coin is a member. “But it is the overall picture that one takes in at a single glance,” he continued, explaining that a similar process is brought to bear when a quartet weighs all the various factors that go into forming an interpretation.

The group — Mr. Coin, the violinists Erich Höbarth and Andrea Bischof, and the violist Anita Mitterer — has ranked among the world’s foremost string quartets since shortly after its founding in 1985, balancing period instruments and historically informed performance practice with contemporary interpretive impulses like no other. Yet apart from a Zankel Hall appearance in 2009, its concerts at the 92nd Street Y during the last two weeks were part of its first United States tour in more than a decade, mostly because of its members’ busy schedules as individuals.

Still, when the Quatuor Mosaïques presented its second program at the Y on Thursday evening, the group’s ingratiating sound and impeccable interpretive unity gave the sense of a unit that lives and breathes together constantly. You could hear it in the way the players deftly negotiated the asymmetrical theme, shifts between major and minor, and rash asides in the Allegro con spirito of Haydn’s Quartet in G minor (Op. 20, No. 3), which opened the concert. They avidly embraced the jerky oddness of the Menuet; Mr. Coin sounded especially soulful in the tender Poco adagio.

With works like this, Haydn transformed the string quartet from a medium of genteel diversion to one of innovation and rigorous discourse. In Mozart’s Quartet in B flat (K. 458, “Hunt”), you heard Haydn’s advances allied to a fervid young imagination, as well as a penchant for singing lines to which Mr. Höbarth’s lithe touch and lilting tone proved ideally suited.

From a start in Haydn’s fundamentals Beethoven proceeded to erect mountains, wrestle demons and gaze on eternity within the sublime sprawl of his late quartets. In his final Quartet No. 16 in F (Op. 135), he returned to Classical form with flinty concision. The Quatuor Mosaïques made the most of this mercurial work, with a ravishing Lento assai that was tantamount to secular hymnody.

Recalled for an encore, the group complied with a similarly rapt account of the Cavatina from Beethoven’s Quartet No. 13 in B flat (Op. 130).