Brahms: String Sextets Belcea Quartet, Tabea Zimmermann, Jean-Guihen Queyras

• Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897): String Sextet No. 1, Op. 18:
• 1 Brahms: String Sextet No. 1, Op. 18: I. Allegro ma non troppo 14:44
• 2 Brahms: String Sextet No. 1, Op. 18: II. Andante ma moderato 09:31
• 3 Brahms: String Sextet No. 1, Op. 18: III. Scherzo. Allegro molto 03:09
• 4 Brahms: String Sextet No. 1, Op. 18: IV. Rondo. Poco allegretto e grazioso 10:09
• String Sextet No. 2, Op. 36:
• 5 Brahms: String Sextet No. 2, Op. 36: I. Allegro non troppo 13:54
• 6 Brahms: String Sextet No. 2, Op. 36: II. Scherzo. Allegro non troppo — Presto giocoso 07:25
• 7 Brahms: String Sextet No. 2, Op. 36: III. Poco adagio 08:52
• 8 Brahms: String Sextet No. 2, Op. 36: IV. Poco allegro 08:04
• Total Runtime 01:15:48

Info for Brahms: String Sextets

Brahms was one of the first composers to write for pairs of violins, violas and cellos, blazing the trail for Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Korngold and Schoenberg. His two sextets are early works, composed in 1860 and 1865 respectively. Brahms wrote to his publisher that the second was in ‘the same joyful vein’ as the first. Yet the composer’s life was sombre at this time: his mother died suddenly and his romantic relationship with the soprano Agathe von Siebold ended in failure; indeed, the first movement of the sextet opens with a viola motif on the notes A-G-A-D- B-E (AGADHE in German notation) . . . The members of the Belcea Quartet called in their friends Tabea Zimmermann and Jean-Guihen Queyras to record these peaks of the chamber repertory following a concert tour to some of Europe’s major venues.

Belcea Quartet:
Corina Belcea, violin
Axel Schacher, violin
Krzysztof Chorzelski, viola
Antoine Lederlin, cello
Additional musicians:
Tabea Zimmermann, viola
Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello

The Belcea Quartet
which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2019, is one of the world’s most renowned string quartets. Formed at the Royal College of Music in London, the ensemble includes members from three countries: the first violinist Corina Belcea comes from Romania, violist Krzysztof Chorzelski is from Poland, and Axel Schacher and Antoine Lederlin on the violin and cello are French.

The musicians trained under world-famous mentors from the Amadeus and Alban Berg quartets, and now perform on the world’s most prestigious stages, including the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, New York’s Carnegie Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall, as well as at the famous festivals in Lausanne, Salzburg and Schwarzenberg. The Belcea Quartet also regularly visits Hamburg. In February 2017, the ensemble was one of the first ever string quartets to perform in the Elbphilharmonie Recital Hall.

The quartet’s impressive discography includes award-winning recordings of Beethoven’s complete quartets, as well as CDs of all string quartets by Britten, Bartók and Brahms. In collaboration with renowned musicians such as the pianists Piotr Anderszewski and Till Fellner, the cellist Valentin Erben and the singers Ian Bostridge and Matthias Goerne, the quartet has also released albums featuring works by Mozart, Schubert, Fauré and Dutilleux – a tradition the quartet continues in their latest concert stream.

Tabea Zimmermann
is one of the most renowned and celebrated performers of our time. Audiences and fellow musicians value her profound musical insight and the naturalness of her playing. The violist has received numerous awards for her artistic accomplishments, most recently the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2020.

As a soloist, she regularly works with the world’s leading orchestras. In recent years, she has held residencies in Weimar and Luxembourg, and with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Hamburg’s Ensemble Resonanz, with which she continues to collaborate closely.

Zimmermann has awakened the interest of many contemporary composers in the viola, and has premiered several new works. Her discography encompasses more than 50 award-winning CDs, among them recordings of Paul Hindemith’s complete works for viola, and pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach and Max Reger. One of the highlights of her intensive engagement with Ludwig van Beethoven involved recording using the composer’s own viola.

Zimmermann lives in Berlin and has three (almost) adult children. She has been teaching at the Hanns Eisler University of Music since 2002.

Jean-Guihen Queyras
»This man has reinvented the cello,« wrote Diapason magazine about Jean-Guihen Queyras, one of the world’s most diverse and extraordinary cellists. Queyras applies himself with equal enthusiasm to early and contemporary music. He gives concerts with ensembles specialising in historically informed performance such as the Freiburger Barockorchester, and also regularly premieres new works by composers such as Bruno Mantovani and Thomas Larcher.

Queyras is a regular on the world’s most prestigious concert stages. He is also popular with audiences in Hamburg: he has performed Bach’s Cello Suites in a choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker in the Elbphilharmonie Grand Hall, and has given a concert at the Laeiszhalle with Emmanuel Pahud and Eric Le Sage. Chamber music is dear to his heart: he is a founding member of the Arcanto Quartet and plays as a trio with Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov.

His impressive discography includes recordings of cello concertos by Edward Elgar, Antonín Dvořák, Robert Schumann, Philippe Schoeller and Gilbert Amy. Queyras teaches at the Freiburg University of Music and is the Artistic Director of the Rencontres Musicales de Haute-Provence festival in Forcalquier in the south of France.

Booklet for Brahms: String Sextets