Fitzwilliam

The Swiss harpsichordist, Ursula Dütschler, studied with Jörg Ewald Dähler at the Konservatorium Bern with a soloist diploma. She continued her musical training with Kenneth Gilbert at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and with Malcolm Bilson (Hammerflügel) at the Cornell University in the USA. She won several prizes, including the 1989 International Cembalo Competition in Paris and the 1991 International Erwin Bodky Competition for Hammerflügel in Boston/USA. Today Ursula Dütschler lives in Holland and appears as a soloist, chamber musician and Lieder accompanist. She has performed with various important orchestras. Together with Malcolm Bilson and some musician colleagues she participated in 1997 in perforamance of the 32 piano sonatas of L.v. Beethoven on historical instruments. Ursula Dütschler has recorded several CD's, among which four CDs with works for solo harpsichord by Scarlatti, Byrd, Balbastre and Bach.

Of these two great classical quartets which look forward so much to the heights of the Romantic period, one (Death and the Maiden) is almost universally loved. The almost contemporary A minor quartet is sometimes referred to as the Rosamunde because of its strong thematic links to Schuberts incidental music to that play. Both are here played on period instruments, with gut strings, in what is an authentic and thoroughly top-class performance by one of our foremost string ensembles. The Fitzwilliam Quartet has just celebrated its 50th anniversary. Acknowledged as one of the finest British quartets of our age they are equally at home in the classics, playing period instruments, or in the modern and contemporary repertoire, having had personal links with Shostakovich who called the Fitzwilliams the preferred performers of my quartets.