for String Quartet Score and Parts. Par HARTKE STEPHEN. THE FIFTH BOOK of the title refers to what Stephen Hartke considers his fifth book of madrigals, only two of which books are actually for voices, with the others being for string instruments. Hartke writes madrigals for string instruments due to their inherent singing quality, but also due to the fluid structural character of the madrigal as a genre that often responds in quite mercurial ways to the emotional unfolding of its text. These five movements are thus abstract madrigals whose larger outlines, shifts in mood, and various internal reminiscences are intended to convey a private, unspoken drama. Commissioned for the Brentano String Quartet by the Frankfurt Burgerstiftung im Holzhausenschlosschen sponsored by the Ernst Max von Grunelius-Stiftung. / Date parution : 2020-04-11/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Par BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN. Many anecdotes surround String Quartet op. 131: Beethoven is said to have considered it to be his finest quartet and of his late period works, the one dearest to his heart. It is also believed that the composer invested so much of himself in it: his ailing health, the social isolation brought about by his deafness and the suicide attempt of his nephew Karl. In addition it was reported that Franz Schubert asked to hear this piece once more on his deathbed. Even if these anecdotes are not all true, they reveal what generations of musicians felt they heard in this quartet: Beethoven’s most personal musical idiom and a vulnerable message from the final period of his life. This new edition by Jonathan Del Mar represents a thorough revision of this highly complex work. Meticulously incorporated are Beethoven’s pencil markings that were previously almost completely ignored./ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Par BARGIELSKI ZBIGNIEW . After the first performance of my Fourth Quartet, in Salzburg in 1997, the artists of the excellent Hugo Wolf Quartett approached me with the appealing proposition that I write a new quartet. Rather problematic, however, proved to be the musicians’ delicate suggestion that I invest the work with elements of a more pungent expression and elements of folklore – ideally Polish. That suggestion meant that I did not immediately come to a decision, since folklore had not been (with the exception of a few works for accordion) the object of my interest. However, in defiance of my aesthetic outlook at that time, I decided to take up this interesting invitation and tackle what was for me a difficult problem. Ultimately, I found a way out of this rather ambiguous situation by employing a sort of dodge: I gave the new work a title. In a way, ‘The time that has passed’ substantiates the current to which I referred while writing this composition. The title and the subtitles of the work’s movements, which sound quite exotic in our day and age (there are as many as nine movements), justify the curious marriage between the somewhat nostalgic past and a present that has not yet been particularly well ‘assimilated’. I hope that these feuilles d’album will discharge their ‘toning’ function well. - Zbigniew Bargielski/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes