Biography

Erika Geldsetzer  -  violin
Sascha Frömbling  -  viola
Konstantin Heidrich  -  cello
Dirk Mommertz  -  piano

The Fauré Quartett was founded in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1995, the 150th anniversary of the birth of composer Gabriel Fauré. In the two decades since then, it has established itself as one of the world’s leading piano chamber ensembles and as one of the few for their instrumental combination. The Quartett has appeared in most of the world’s leading concert halls, including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. In addition to mainstream classics, the Fauré Quartett is devoted to discovering new and unusual repertory. Their most recent CD includes an arrangement. Their visionary, experimental approach has attracted considerable attention, as for example in their collaborations with artists like Rufus Wainwright and Sven Helbig, and appearances in clubs like Le Poisson Rouge in New York. Fanfare magazine identified the Fauré Quartett as “musicians who play with a great deal of refinement, nuance and silkiness of tone”. 6th LMMC concert.

https://faurequartett.de/en/home-english/

Notes

Schubert composed his only work for this formation in 1816 at the age of 19. The introductory Adagio leads into the main Rondo concertante section, though it is a “rondo” in name only (its real form is that of a sonatina). The “concertante” is truly named, as this is the piano’s show, with the strings mainly providing accompaniment.

Fauré specialized in small, intimate forms of music. The quartet we hear this afternoon is one of his few large-scale compositions and his best-known piece of chamber music. It is a comparatively early work (1879) in which we find the influence of Brahms and Schumann; there is a sense of surging romanticism, a fullness of texture and rich sonorities in this quartet, aspects that have largely disappeared by the time Fauré wrote his more characteristic works of later years. 

Brahms’ G-minor piano quartet, completed in 1861, is the most popular of his three works in the genre and one of the best-known of all Brahms’ chamber works. Its expansive first movement contains a wealth of thematic, motivic and rhythmic ideas, all welded into a musical structure and unified by the four-note motif that opens the work. The next movement is more moderate in tempo and subdued in nature, filled with wistful tones and veiled colors. The emotional heart of the quartet is the magnificent slow movement with its long-arching melodic lines, a warmly romantic atmosphere and rich sonorities. The rondo-finale “in the gypsy style” incorporates four themes into an all-out maelstrom of untamed energy and virtuosic effects.

Robert Markow