Haydn Quatuor 33

«Si la personnalité humaine est une énigme, la réunion de quatre individus reste, elle aussi, un mystère. Pour rendre perceptible aux générations futures l’essence de la musique, il faudra prendre conscience que l’art, demain, ne nécessitera pas tant de perfection que d’humanité. S’il y a un message du Quatuor Amadeus c’est bien celui-là. L’autre secret des Amadeus c’était l’intuition, la spontanéité.

Recorded in Budapest between 1993 and 2006, this complete set of the Haydn String Quartets performed by the Festetics Quartet represents the most challenging project accomplished by Michel Bernstein, the mythical founder of Arcana who died a few months after the recording of the very last volume. For the first time in a boxed set, this monumental achievement is the first and only complete on period instruments and features the complete 58 string quartets authenticated by the composer for the great Artaria edition, making a total of 19 CDs put in chronological order. A reference edition, enriched by the detailed essay signed by the Hungarian musicologist László Somfai, one of the most eminent Haydn scholars. The Festetics have extensively studied Haydn’s original quartet manuscripts, and have relied heavily on László Somfai.

KOMITAS QUARTET Established in 1924 at the Moscow State Tchaykovsky Conservatory by four talented Armenian students, Komitas State Quartet celebrates its 80th Anniversary in 2004. The oldest quartet of Viennese school among existing in the world has recently applied to Guinness World Records for official recognition of that fact and the request has been approved as unique. All musicians of the quartet play Guarnerius instruments, Andrea and Pietro, of 17 and 18 centuries and their skill is so brilliant that it has always created overwhelming response in all countries of the world they toured, over 70 in total. True ambassadors of Armenian culture, Komitas State Quartet produce a unique sound distinct, vivid and original.

Composed in 1788 and considered works of Haydn’s full maturity as a composer, the quartets of Opus 54 immerse us in the bountiful universe of “the Father of the String Quartet”. Like with the Adagio of Op. 54 n° 2, his humanity and profundity fill us with wonder and remind us to what extent the very essence of the string quartet is exalted in this music.

he players take an appropriately spacious view of the Sunrise Quartet's serene opening bars, and provide a deeply felt account of the wonderful F sharp major slow movement from Op. 76/5. They offer, too, an intensely dramatic performance of the first movement of the D minor Fifths Quartet, and manage to find a striking change of colour for the minor sections of Op. 76/5's opening movement.

Believe it or not, François-Joseph Gossec was the French musical equivalent of Haydn and Beethoven. Under the ancient régime, Gossec established single-handedly the primacy of the string quartet and the symphony in French instrumental music and under the Empire, Gossec created a revolutionary form of massed public music pre-dating Beethoven's Ninth.