Ludwig van Beethoven: 6. Finale: Allegro from String Quartet in B-flat major Op. 130

From the album "Ins stille Land" (PENTATONE)

SONGS AND QUARTETS OF FINAL JOURNEYS AND CONSOLATIONS

After their multi-award-winning album Aus der Ferne, the Signum Quartett continues their Schubert journey for PENTATONE with Ins stille Land, another recording that explores the fascinating connections between his string quartets and songs, the latter arranged for string quartet by Xandi van Dijk, the ensemble’s violist. The concept for this recording project grew out of the Schubertiad, where chamber music and vocal works would be heard side by side in an intimate setting. Many of the songs and quartets featured on Ins stille Land share a fascination for death, but death as a final journey that ultimately offers consolation. While the song Ins stille Land (Into the silent land) fully epitomizes this idea, the world famous “Death and the Maiden” quartet is the album’s centrepiece.

Franz Schubert: "Auf dem Wasser zu singen" D774 (Arr. Xandi van Dijk)

Franz Schubert: 3. Scherzo from String Quartet in d minor D 810 "Death and the Maiden"

Franz Schubert: 4. Allegro from String Quartet in D major D 74

From the album "No. 3" (2012)

BERG-String Quartet, Op. 3
Composed in 1909-1910.

Alban Berg (1885-1935) met Arnold Schoenberg in October 1904, in response to a newspaper want ad. Schoenberg, who had made news in 1902 with the premiere of his first large-scale work, Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) had decided to take students to help make ends meet. Within days he signed up the two young men who would help him write one of the central chapters in twentieth-century music. Both Berg and Anton Webern were at their teacher's side as he composed the first music that was called atonal (Schoenberg thought the term nonsensical and preferred the all-inclusive "pantonal").

Berg's first compositions written under Schoenberg show the powerful influence of his teacher, as well as the potent impact of the Romantic era. (Berg's relationship with Schoenberg was complicated; Berg's father had died when he was fifteen, and Schoenberg quickly became a surrogate father as well as a mentor and model.) As early as the Four Songs, begun in 1909 and published the following year as op. 2, Berg also seemed ready to abandon tonality. His very next work, the masterful String Quartet, op. 3, was his valediction; Berg was now a colleague, not a disciple.

This String Quartet stands at the crossroads of past and future. The vocabulary is still recognizably that of Wagner and Mahler, but Berg has stretched it beyond the limits of even those two pioneers. Although the last traces of tonality remain, Berg's music is rarely tied to the triad and he seems to be searching for a new harmonic language. The quartet's opening theme employs all twelve notes of the scale, though not in the systematic way of Schoenberg's serial system, still years in the future. The Quartet is colored throughout by passionate expression and explosive dramatic power. The spirit of the work, characterized by such deep emotional intensity, still belongs to the nineteenth century. This ambiguity and tension—between its romantic roots and its modernist ambitions—give it a complexity and richness rare in music written in a more settled style. The last measure is emblematic: a D minor triad is quick followed by a dissonant chord, so that there is both the suggestion of finality, as well as a sense of an unanswered question.

The Quartet has two movements, comparable to a traditional sonata allegro and rondo. Despite the difference in their moods, the two are so closely related that they function like halves of a single paragraph—the second movement even begins with the last pitches of the first, so that the break between them is, in effect, no more than a pause for breath in Berg's musical argument.

Over the years, Berg and Schoenberg had a difficult and sometimes stormy relationship, but neither man ever lost his respect for the other's accomplishments. Shortly after Berg's untimely death, Schoenberg recalled how his student's String Quartet had surprised him in the most unbelievable way by the fullness and unconstraint of its musical language, the strength and sureness of its presentation, its careful working and significant originality. That was the time when I moved to Berlin (1911) and he was left to his own devices. He has shown that he was equal to the task.

Program Notes by Phillip Huscher
(http://www.encoreccm.org/pieces/425)

Alban Berg: String Quartet op. 3, I. Langsam

From the album Quartettsätze/ Quartet Movements (2011)

Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)

Serenade (Italienische Serenade) (String Quartet) in G major
(for 2 violins, viola and cello)
Molto vivo

Composed in 1887, when Wolf was around 27 years old 

Hugo WolfHugo Wolf was an elusive figure remembered primarily for his masterful lieder, his trenchant criticism of Brahms and his eventual decay into dissolution and madness. He was a fierce disciple of Wagner and the "new" German school and can be regarded as a late Viennese Romantic before the turning of the tide with Schoenberg after Wolf's death. Leaving only a few works for small ensemble, his lone and rarely performed string quartet in D minor is the closest thing we have to Wagnerian or even Mahlerian chamber music. Wolf also penned a two single movement works for string quartet, a substantial Intermezzo and his one "outlier", the celebrated Italian Serenade. Completed in 1886, the Italian Serenade occupied Wolf for some time with the word "Italian" added to the simple title Serenade only in later revisions. Nonetheless, the predominantly buoyant music, tuneful, colorful and rhythmically animated, seems to naturally support free associations with things Italian if not in some way enhanced by association with Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence written only a few years after Wolf's musical postcard. A lithely ornamented melody warbles to the evocation of strumming guitars with a strong penchant for dance if not even a suggestion of operatic comedy.

The word serenade historically implies music of honor, tribute or amorous entreaty, music that is calm, "light" and suitable for relaxed social evenings. Music that entertains and possibly dazzles with delight. Wolf's bright serenade largely conforms to this character. But there is more than just this in the music. The rhythmic and occasionally contrapuntal writing is skillful and meticulous with a rich variety of textures weaving throughout. The music develops into a sharply articulated adventure with a bit more intrigue one might expect of a little "night music." Wolf's late Viennese Romantic sensibilities emerge in the middle as the texture dramatically falls apart into dissonant recitative, a kind of expressionistic call and response accompanied by disorienting swirls, mocking echoes, parody and a brief touch of the macabre. But it seems entirely consonant with an Italian evening, particularly the wild intrigue of a psychedelic Venetian carnival. And just like a group of masked figures that approach, pass and disappear into the night, the intrigue evaporates and the music resumes its giddy serenade.

(Programme note taken from http://www.earsense.org/chamberbase)

Hugo Wolf:  Serenade In G,  Italian Serenade

From the album Quartettsätze/ Quartet Movements (2011)


LANGSAMER SATZ (1905) by Anton Webern (1883-1945)

Anton von Webern's Langsamer Satz (1905) had to wait almost 60 years before receiving its first performance. Arguing that the language of new music must be securely anchored in traditional forms, Arnold Schoenberg sought to discipline his abundantly talented pupil, Webern, by pushing him to write single movements for string quartet. Webern wrote many such pieces, but the Langsamer Satz transcends by far its "assignment" status. Webern biographer Malcolm Hayes has described it as "an exercise in late Romantic soulfulness; its underlying mood of sweet serenity looks back to the tranced, dreamlike mood of Im Sommerwind as well as forward to the new leaner style that Webern was already developing."

The nature-loving Webern took as his inspiration a hiking holiday he made with his cousin (and future wife) Wilhelmine Mortl in the spring of 1905. They visited the Waldwinkel in Lower Austria, a picturesque stretch of countryside to the west of Vienna. Webern later wrote of the trip in his diary, impressing himself with literary flourishes (...): "We wandered through forests. It was a fairyland! High tree trunks all around us, a green luminescence in between, and here and there floods of gold on the green moss. The forest symphony resounded... A walk in the moonlight on flowery meadows - Then the night - [here Webern quotes poet Detlev von Liliencron] "What the night gave to me, will long make me tremble' - Two souls had wed." 

(Programme note taken from: http://www.prx.org/pieces/100448/transcripts/224721)

Anton Webern:  Langsamer Satz (1905)

From the album Quartettsätze/ Quartet Movements (2011)

Franz Schubert:  Quartettsatz in c minor, D. 703

From the album "Lebensmuth" (PENTATONE)

COURAGEOUS EMBRACE OF LIFE

Lebensmuth is the final episode of Signum Quartett’s acclaimed Schubert trilogy, in which early and late string quartets are combined with song arrangements created by the group’s violist Xandi van Dijk. Schubert’s First String Quartet in G Minor, written when he was 13, already reveals his inclination to bold and unexpected moves. His last String Quartet in G major, D. 887 veers between a profound examination of personal trauma and a blazing triumph over adversity, and it is this resilience of spirit which is further highlighted by songs such as ‘An die Musik’ and ‘Lebensmuth’, pieces that courageously embrace life and all the beauty it offers.

The Signum Quartett is frequently hailed as one of the most adventurous and outstanding ensembles of today. The quartet’s first Pentatone recording Aus der Ferne (2018) won an Opus Klassik 2019 award, as well as a diapason d’or, and was followed by Ins stille Land (2020).

Franz Schubert: IV. Presto from String Quartet in g minor D18

Franz Schubert: "Im Frühling" D882 (arr. Xandi van Dijk)

Franz Schubert: I. Allegro molto moderato from String Quartet in G major D887

Nury Guarnaschelli (horn)
Peter Erdei (horn II, Beethoven)

Signum Quartet
(Annette Walther, viola II, Mozart K. 407)

W.A. Mozart: Horn Quintet In E Flat Major, K. 407 - III. Rondeau  Allegro

Telemann, Georg Philipp: Sonata á Violino I, Violino II, Viola e Violono, TWV 40:200, A major

1. Affettuoso
2. Allegro - Adagio
3. Vivace 

Live recording, 2010

Telemann Sonata á quattro 3. Vivace

Telemann Sonata á quattro 2. Allegro - Adagio

Telemann Sonata á quattro 1. Affettuoso

From the album soundescapes (Capriccio, 2015)

Buy at amazon.de

Claude Debussy: String Quartet in G minor, op. 10 (1893) 1. Animé et très décidé

Erwin Schulhoff: III. Alla Serenata from 5 Pieces for String Quartet (1923)

Erwin Schulhoff: V. Alla Tarantella from 5 Pieces for String Quartet (1923)

Antonín Dvořák: IV. Finale from String Quartet in G major, op.106

Suk: Meditation on the Old Czech Chorale "St Wenceslas", op. 35

Gezwitscher zu viert: Livemusik mit dem Signum Quartett WDR 3 TonArt | 10.06.2016 | 42:25 Min. 

Als erfolgreiche Formation ist das Signum Quartett auf dem Gebiet der nonverbalen Kommunikation bereits sehr erfahren. Mit ihrem neuen musikmedialen Projekt #quartweet wollen die Musiker diese Erfahrung ganz im Sinne des Zeitgeistes erweitern: Open Source, Kontakt und Kommunikation mittels Musik in ihrer kürzesten Form sind das Ziel. Genaueres dazu und auch eine musikalische Kostprobe gibt es in unserer Sendung.

http://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/audio/wdr3/wdr3-tonart/audio-gezwitscher-zu-viert-livemusik-mit-dem-signum-quartett-100.html

WDR 3 Tonart

Gezwitscher zu viert: Livemusik mit dem Signum Quartett | WDR 3 Tonart (10.06.2016)

From the album "Aus der Ferne" (PENTATONE)

Aus der Ferne illuminates the Romanticism and lyricism of this great master. By combining string quartets with lieder arranged for string quartet, the members of the Signum Quartett aim to show how Schubert’s instrumental and vocal music cross-pollinate each other. The fact that Schubert quotes openly from his own songs in his chamber music underlines the strong connection between
the two, and this album takes this connection a step further. The concept for the album grew out of the Schubertiad, where chamber music and vocal works would be heard side by side in an intimate setting. A further idea was to complement one of the late quartets with an earlier one - perhaps lesser-known but not a lesser piece. The B-flat major quartet and the Rosamunde
Quartet, both featured on this album, share a delicacy and fragility of spirit; convey a longing from afar. These instrumental works gain significance by being accompanied by the lieder arrangements, created by quartet member Xandi van Dijk. These arrangements present quintessential Schubert lieder such as Du bist die Ruh, Wandrers Nachtlied and Lachen und Weinen in a new, fascinating light.

Franz Schubert: "Du bist die Ruh" (arr. Xandi van Dijk)

Franz Schubert: 1. Allegro ma non troppo from String Quartet in A Minor 'Rosamunde' No.13, D804

Franz Schubert: 4. Presto from String Quartet in B-flat Major No. 8, D 112

Thanks to its rousing and lively interpretations and individual programme concepts, the Signum Quartet has made its mark on the international quartet scene and has established itself as one of the most distinguished ensembles of its generation.

Intensive studies with the Alban Berg Quartet, Artemis Quartet and the Melos Quartet as well as collaborations with György Kurtág, Walter Levin, Alfred Brendel, Leon Fleisher and Joerg Widmann have shaped the artistic development of the Signum Quartet, which has won numerous awards (German Music Competition, Premio Paolo Borciani, London International String Quartet Competition) and has been accorded intensive support (i.a. BBC New Generation Artists).

Their recording ‘No.3’, released in May 2013, presents quartets by Bartók, Schnittke and Berg, and in January 2014 was announced as recipient of the International Classical Music Awards 2014 ‘Best Chamber Music Recording’.

Concert appearances have taken the Signum Quartet to international podia from Madrid and Barcelona to Basel and Paris. The quartet has performed at the Hamburg Laeiszhalle, the Berlin Philharmonie and Konzerthaus, the Luxemburg Philharmonie, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Wigmore Hall London, the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Boston Harvard Musical Association as well as at the Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau and Schwetzingen Music Festivals and at the BBC Proms.

Regular collaborations with contemporary composers are an integral aspect of the Signum Quartet’s artistic work. Bruno Mantovani will dedicate his String Quartet No. 3 to the ensemble, which they will perform in London, Vienna, Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam in the 2016/ 17 season.

Chamber music partners of the quartet include Joerg Widmann, Igor Levit, Nils Moenkemeyer, Adrian Brendel and Dominique Horwitz.

"It is with great pleasure that I listen listen to your energetic earnestness and poetic precision." Wolfgang Rihm on the recording of his Quartettsatz on the CD released in 2012

"The Signum Quartet is an exceptional occurence and deserves utmost attention." Jörg Widmann


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