Beetz Quartett

Walter Gropius is regarded as a revolutionary visionary who founded the Bauhaus style in the 1920s. His work is characterised by clarity and boldness. In common with the musicians of the Gropius Quartett, Weimar and Berlin were to become the centres of his creative work. Following Gropius' example, and influenced by personal encounters with Yehudi Menuhin and Mstislav Rostropovich, the Gropius Quartett has set itself the goal of crystallising the clear structure of the composition and bringing it to life through their own passionate playing style. The members of the Gropius Quartett have known one another since studying together at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad and at the Juilliard School in New York.

The Boreas Quartett Bremen and soprano Dorothee Mields bring a little-known musical manuscript of the renaissance to life and present a series of premiere recordings. The Basevi Codex, a collection of Franco-Flemish chansons, motets and mass settings, was produced during the early sixteenth century in the famous music scribing workshop of Pierre Alamire. Faithfully following renaissance performance practice, which allowed great freedom in its musical realisations, the recorder consort and Dorothee Mields interpret selected pieces from the codex, with voice or purely instrumental, and, depending on the character of the piece, also with improvised virtuoso ornamentation. This creates a colourful picture of the music as it was sung and played at the Burgundian-Dutch court of Princess Margaret of Austria in Mechelen.