Description

From the very beginning, St. Petersburg – the gloriously petrified vision of Tsar Peter the Great, was a city of art and music. The highest paid employee in the Tsarist palace was a violinist from Nuremberg: Anton Ferdinand Titz. He dedicated his life to chamber music. With his colorful, brilliant quartets in the tradition of the ‘Wiener Klassik’ he himself founded a Russian tradition around 1800.
Decades later Alexander Glazunov made big sensation as a young composing dare devil. During his magnificent 1st symphony he also wrote the 5 Novellettes op. 15. The witty, energetic set of masterpieces is full of technical refinements and glamorous esprit, but also filled with deep emotional devotion. Within them one breathes the spirit and the joy of discovery of the Petersburg salons.
Russian chambermusic triumphed in Tchaikovsky’s successfull quartet debut and finally caught up with the musical capitals of Europe. Its overwhelming orchestral sonority meets Russian melos and passionate virtuos vitality. With its latest CD, the casalQuartett presents known and newly discovered gems from the musical treasure chest of Old Russia.

Description

Franz Xaver Richter (1709-1789) – The true inventor of the string quartet?

An ominous foreboding, blood in the snow, a corpse in winter …
These is the story of a tragic incident which took place near the court of the Duke of Hildburghausen in 1757, and forms part of the unusual credentials of a man who avoided a fatal end only by a hair’s breadth because he chose to play string quartets. In his memoirs, the violinist and composer Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf recalls refusing an invitation to take a ride in a horse-drawn sleigh due to a premonition. As a consequence, while Dittersdorf was playing first violin with his brothers in the court orchestra, a young man sitting next to the coachman on the sleigh ride was killed due to reckless driving. Stimulated with high-quality coffee and indulging in the finest tobacco, Dittersdorf named the celebrated composer of that era whose works they were playing that evening: Franz Xaver Richter, the Mannheim master of counterpoint and a composer of the most exquisite chamber music and symphonies.

Recent research by musicologists shows it is safe to assume that those works were very likely the seven quartets of opus 5, which are now to be released for the first time in a complete recording on the SOLO MUSICA label. Two exceptional CDs have been compiled, in cooperation with the SWR broadcasting company, featuring the casalQuartett from Zurich, an ensemble that won an ECHO Klassik award in 2010. As was the case on their previous two “BIRTH of the STRING QUARTET” CDs, this release features some almost unknown examples of stunningly beautiful string quartets played on four unique instruments by Jacobus Stainer, one of the most-sought-after European violin-makers of the 18th century. This release represents a milestone in the string literature, bringing to life works written 250 years ago, and it makes the case for a well-earned revival of one of the founding fathers of the string quartet.

Description

For the first time recorded entirely on Jacobus Stainer instruments.
Telemann, Guillemain, Haydn, Mozart. The German classic-magazine “Fono Forum” wrote 2010 about “Birth Of The String Quartet Vol. 1: “An overwhelming hearing experience“. Summer 2010 this product was winning the prestigious ECHO KLASSIK award for „Best recording in Chamber music 17/18th Century“.Never before a String Quartet had four valuables instruments of the violin maker Jacobus Stainer from the 1650 century available, never before a String Quartet has sounded in such a way.With VOL. 2 of this series the Casal Quartett moves the French and German roots of the kind in the center. Beside works of Guillemain and Telemann you can listen to one of the early Viennese quartets of Mozart and from Haydn the first masterpieces from op. 76. With this performers and these instruments the real Sound of the 18. Century will be present for the first time.

Description

After their latest release “Birth of string quartet”, played on historical instruments andoverwhelmed with the highest ratings, the casalQuartett is now releasing a new CD called “Intenso”. This time in a very different way: it combines three of the most
expressive and challenging scores of 19, 20, and 21 Century on one CD. Ludwig van Beethoven eruptive “Serioso” Quartet Op 95, Leos Janacek’s harrowing drama of love, the “Kreutzer Sonata” and the limits of playability reaching “First Quartet “Burst rate” of the German Siemens Award winner Dieter Ammann.

All three composers were in their time and go to the pain threshold of the possible and feasible, and so compress their music to works beyond human imagination. The casalQuartett, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung attests them “Chamber Music in age, intensity to the ends of the playable, passion, temperament, expression, and tonal variety”, extend their catalogue with “Intenso” with adding another exciting facet.

Description

For the first time recorded entirely on Jacobus Steiner instruments Scarlatti, Boccherini, Haydn, Mozart

The Jubilee Year 2009 celebrates Joseph Haydn as the most important representatives of the Viennese classics in addition to Mozart. Among its greatest achievements is undoubtedly the “invention” of the string quartet. While typically each student begins with this fascinating genre by Haydn, illuminates the casal quartet with the project “The sound of the 18th century,” the various ways to the creation of the European String Quartet. In Italy, France and Germany, four-part instrumental in the 1 Half of the 18th Century are more and more important. In the first CD of the quartet casal on this issue comes next to the masters of the early classical GF Telemann most outstanding protagonists of Italian gets a chance to speak: JB. Sammartini and Alessandro Scarlatti are preparing, which eventually flows amazingly modern with Luigi Boccherini’s String Quartet in real. Another early milestone of the genre is the Quartet, K. 170 by W.A. Mozart, recorded here also for this CD. For the goal of the development end of the 18th century is finally Haydn’s String Quartet in G major, Op 76 / 1. For these recordings the quartet casal where supplied with a complete set of unique instruments of the Austrian violin-maker Jacob Stainer from the years around 1650. Their sound was considered until the early 19th century as an absolute Ideal.

Awarded with the Echo Klassic 2010

Description

Due to economic rather than artistic reasons, the modern concert-business opens its doors more and more to socalled crossover-projects. This display of music`s universal coherence sometimes looks rather forced or superficial. Some love the idea and tend to go to concerts more often, whereas purists stay at home.

Few genres in music tend to be as traditional and conservative as the string quartet. Its repertoire is vast and features music of all styles since the 17th century. The core-repertoire from Haydn, Beethoven through to Bartók and Schostakowitsch dominates the stage. Unfortunately we still meet producers who stubbornly reject an expansion of the repertoire and refuse contemporary music or even a new idea of how to play a Haydn quartet today. We believe that the versatility of stringquartet music will save the genre from a premature fate. One lifetime is too short to play everything that has been written for quartet. So if we play, it should be the music that appeals to us most, if it be a fourvoice invention of the renaissance, late Beethoven, Erwin Schulhoff or Astor Piazzolla. Those who look at Piazzolla`s life and compositions closely without just listening to his »hits«, will be amazed what a rollercoaster ride he went through. He grew up with jazz; the traditional tango fed him for a long time. With Alberto Ginastera he conquered classical and new music and left Argentinia and finally, the composer Nadja Boulanger led him to his destiny to give the tango a new definition.

As with any good music, the result had to go through a time of evolvement that certainly has not come to an end yet. Encounters with the Argentinian musicians Giora Feidman (clarinet) and Michael Zisman (bandoneon) have helped us to understand tango as a »foreign« culture much better. We hope that every listener will feel this inspiration on this CD. Michael Zisman recorded with us those »Tango Sensations«, that seemed specially important to Piazzolla. They sound different from what we normaly expect from him. They are intimate, vulnerable, uniquely his, painful, sometimes angry. They are always the work of a great composer who honestly shows what he feels.