SWAN SINGING
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy 1809-1847 String Quartet No. 6 in F minor op. 80 (1847) 1st Allegro vivace 2nd Scherzo: Assai leggiero vivace 3rd Adagio non troppo
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) String Quintet in C major, D 956, op. post. 163 (1828) 1st Allegro ma non troppo 2nd Adagio 3rd Scherzo. Presto - Trio. Andante sostenuto 4th Allegretto - più allegro - più presto
The French string quartet Quatuor Van Kuijk has had a brilliant start to its career since its foundation in 2012: it received first prizes as well as honours for the best Beethoven and Haydn interpretations at the «Wigmore Hall International Chamber Music Competition», was a prizewinner of the Académie du Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and finally part of the prestigious ECHO Rising Stars series of the 2017/18 season.
The Quatuor Van Kuijk records exclusively for the Alpha Classics label. The Debut album «Mozart» was released with great success. After two critically acclaimed CD recordings with works by Debussy and Ravel as well as Schubert, two more Mozart albums were released in 2020 with the string quartets KV 421 and KV 387 as well as the viola quartets KV 515 and KV 516 with Adrien La Marca.
The Quatuor Van Kuijk was a quartet in residence at Proquartet in Paris, where the members studied with musicians from the Alban Berg Quartet, the Artemis Quartet and the Hagen Quartet. They had previously studied with the Quatuor Ysaÿe and then with Günter Pichler at the Escuela Superior de Mùsica Reina Sofía in Madrid, which was made possible thanks to the generous support of the International Institute of Chamber Music Madrid.
For Schubert's very popular and wonderful String Quintet, the quartet plays together with their former cellist François Robin, who played in the Quatuor Van Kuijk for 5 years. François studied in Lyon and Paris with Christophe Coin, where he received the "Diplôme d'Artiste Interprète" in 2014. In the same year, he was allowed to represent France at the International Music Students Festival in Kyoto, Japan. During an Erasmus exchange in Vienna in 2011, François had the privilege of studying with Valentin Erben, the cellist of the legendary Alban Berg Quartet. This is where his passion for chamber music was born. François Robin now lives with his family in Zurich.
ABOUT THE WORKS
A swan song is the name given to a composer's last work. Two swan songs can be heard in this concert:
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy created his last work in 1847 with the String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, Op. 80. When his sister Fanny died of a stroke in May 1847, he was deeply shocked. After initial exhaustion and inability to compose, he wrote the F minor Quartet in the summer in Interlaken. This is to be understood as autobiographical and is seen as a kind of requiem for his beloved sister. The work represents a previously unprecedented and far-reaching break with the formal requirements of the classical string quartet. The dramatic, expressive character of the work astonished the audience to the utmost, as Mendelssohn's compositions had previously been characterized by great introspection. Schubert composed his String Quintet in C major in 1828, just a few months before his death. It became his chamber music swan song and is one of the most beautiful works of the Romantic era. The string sextet combines all the qualities of Schubert's mature instrumental music: the symphonic form as well as the ethereal beauty of the sound and dramatic contrasts. The music critic Joachim Kaiser said of the work: “All people who care about music, especially chamber music, bow down before Franz Schubert’s String Quintet in C major, happily admiring – or raving about it. The work occupies a unique place in Schubert’s oeuvre, indeed even in the music literature. It is enigmatic, and it is perfect."
