Chiaroscuro Quartet - The Prussian Quartets - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]

With her new album Mozartiana, award-winning violinist Clarissa Bevilacqua presents a fascinating musical tribute and, at the same time, opens up new perspectives on a timeless genius.Clarissa Bevilacqua, who studied at the renowned Mozarteum Salzburg and won both first prize and the audience prize at the Mozart International Competition 2020, combines past and present in a captivating musical dialogue on Mozartiana.In addition to masterpieces such as F. X. Mozart's Sonata for Violin and Piano, Beethoven's 12 Variations on InchLe nozze di FigaroInch, and Schnittke's Moz-Art for ensemble, the album features contemporary compositions written especially for this album by Felix Willeitner, Sophia Jani, Jorge Bosso, and Giovanni Sollima-all of which are world premiere recordings.As founder and artistic director of DYNAMIKfest Salzburg, Bevilacqua once again demonstrates her passionate commitment to combining classical and modern music. Mozartiana is not only a tribute to Mozart-it is a living commitment to artistic curiosity, diversity, and musical dialogue across the centuries.

?InchGut strings and classical bows are also the tools of a captivating quest for sonorityInch, French magazine Diapason recently wrote to describe the Chiaroscuro Quartet. After Op. 20, Joseph Haydn's first major string quartet cycle, and Op. 76, his last, the internationally renowned ensemble is now embarking on the Quartets Op. 33, dubbed the InchRussian QuartetsInch and dedicated to the Russian Grand Duke Paul, the future Tsar Paul I. Having earned a reputation as eccentric and non-conformist, sometimes downright offensive, Haydn felt the need to write music more in keeping with the public's lighter, more 'popular', less 'scholarly' tone, with a livelier sense of rhythm. And while there is comedy in some of the scherzos, it would be wrong to reduce these works to what some dour critics have called 'comic fooling'. In Quartet No 1 in B minor, the comedy is cerebral, often disturbing. This is certainly not the case in Quartet No 2 in E flat major, nicknamed InchThe JokeInch because of the sparkling tarantella that concludes it. In Quartet No 3 in C major, InchThe BirdInch, Haydn invites us to a veritable bird concert before concluding brilliantly with it's persistent refrain inspired by a wild Slavic folk dance.

On a previous album, the Chiaroscuro Quartet has recorded the first half of Joseph Haydn's Op. 76, including No. 3, the celebrated 'Emperor' quartet. The has won great acclaim, with the critic in Gramophone writing 'The Chiaroscuros' account of the remaining three Op 76 quartets can't come soon enough.' Well, here it is - a album which like it's predecessor spans a wealth of moods and atmospheres from the magical sunrise of the opening of 76/4 to the manic minuet and boisterous finale of 76/6, a movement without a tune worth the name but utterly engrossing even so. The Chiaroscuro Quartet was formed in 2005 by the violinists Alina Ibragimova (Russia) and Pablo Hernan Benedi (Spain), the Swedish violist Emilie Hornlund and cellist Claire Thirion from France. Performing music of the Classical period on gut strings this highly international ensemble has a unique sound - described in The Observer as 'a shock to the ears of the best kind'.