Mozart: String Quartets, Vol. IV Armida Quartett

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791): String Quartet No. 44 in C Major, K. 157:
• 1 Mozart: String Quartet No. 44 in C Major, K. 157: I. Allegro 05:13
• 2 Mozart: String Quartet No. 44 in C Major, K. 157: II. Andante 04:39
• 3 Mozart: String Quartet No. 44 in C Major, K. 157: III. Presto 01:43
• String Quartet No. 6 in B-Flat Major, K. 159:
• 4 Mozart: String Quartet No. 6 in B-Flat Major, K. 159: I. Andante 04:03
• 5 Mozart: String Quartet No. 6 in B-Flat Major, K. 159: II. Allegro 04:38
• 6 Mozart: String Quartet No. 6 in B-Flat Major, K. 159: III. Rondo. Allegro grazioso 02:43
• String Quartett No. 7 in E-Flat Major, K. 160:
• 7 Mozart: String Quartett No. 7 in E-Flat Major, K. 160: I. Allegro 03:07
• 8 Mozart: String Quartett No. 7 in E-Flat Major, K. 160: II. Un poco adagio 04:30
• 9 Mozart: String Quartett No. 7 in E-Flat Major, K. 160: III. Presto 02:36
• String Quartet No. 19 in D Major, K. 465:
• 10 Mozart: String Quartet No. 19 in D Major, K. 465: I. Adagio - Allegro 10:16
• 11 Mozart: String Quartet No. 19 in D Major, K. 465: II. Andante cantabile 06:17
• 12 Mozart: String Quartet No. 19 in D Major, K. 465: III. Menuetto. Allegretto - Trio 05:26
• 13 Mozart: String Quartet No. 19 in D Major, K. 465: IV. Allegro molto 07:21
• Total Runtime 01:02:32

Info for Mozart: String Quartets, Vol. IV

…..The Armida Quartet endeavors to find dissonances lying like sleeping metaphors on the seabed of Mozart’s music, in order to bring them to the surface and back to life – yet without making them too obvious.

In so doing, the musicians commit themselves to follow the original sources, which they are intensely studying in collaboration with expert musicological counsel. But they are also committed to their chosen name, “Armida”, which evokes a widespread opera subject stemming from Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme liberata (“Jerusalem Delivered”).

In that well-known story, Armida stands for what we would call cognitive dissonance. The Christian knight from the West and the pagan beauty from the East are fascinated with one another and fall in love. Despite her infatuation, however, Armida must surely also be an evil sorceress, since she is distracting Rinaldo, the crusader, from his holy mission of war. Armida’s final submission is sealed once and for all with a battle victory and a baptism: this is obviously a Western projection we need to view with a greater deal of nuance.

With its apparently irresolvable dissonance arising from contradictory feelings, the fear caused by the seductive outer appearance of beauty, and the ostensibly unappealable validity of cultural norms, the fictional Armida material is a true aesthetic and cultural litmus test…… ….. (Excerpt from the booklet notes by Hansjörg Ewert)

Armida Quartett

Armida Quartett
Since its spectacular success at the ARD International Competition in 2012, at which the Armida Quartet received first prize, the audience prize and six other special awards, the career of the young Berlin string quartet has developed sensationally. The quartet has been nominated by the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg as one of the Rising Stars of the European Concert Hall Organisation for the 2016/2017 season.

The Armida Quartet has also made its debut at such renowned summer festivals as the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Davos Festival and the Heidelberg Spring Music Festival. In September 2014 the quartet was invited to join the BBC’s distinguished New Generation Artists series, which offers the ensemble the opportunity to appear in various concerts and broadcasts for two years.

Founded in Berlin in 2006, the quartet took its name from an opera by Haydn, the “father of the string quartet”. The ensemble studied with members of the Artemis Quartet, also drawing musical inspiration from Natalia Prischepenko, Alfred Brendel, Tabea Zimmermann, Eberhard Feltz and Walter Levin. The quartet has participated in master classes with the Alban Berg, Guarneri and Arditti Quartets and currently works with Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet) and Reinhard Goebel.

The Armida Quartet won first prize at the Geneva Competition in 2011 and received several scholarships, including those of the Irene Steels-Wilsing Foundation and the Schierse Foundation in Berlin. The young ensemble’s debut CD, featuring works by Béla Bartók, György Ligeti and György Kurtág, was released in 2013 and selected by the German Record Critics’ Award for its critics’ choice list.

During the current season the quartet appears for the first time in Norway, China, Taiwan and Singapore, also presenting concerts in Stuttgart, Munich, Hamburg, Bonn, Antwerp and Geneva.

Frequent collaboration with other artists is a priority for the Armida Quartet – the ensemble has worked with Anna Prohaska, Thomas Hampson, Ewa Kupiec, Max Hornung and Tabea Zimmermann. The four young musicians of the Armida Quartet have taught chamber music at the Berlin University of the Arts since October 2012.

Booklet for Mozart: String Quartets, Vol. IV