Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) String Quartet No 6 in B-flat Major Op 18
Allegro con brio ~ Adagio, ma non troppo ~ Scherzo (Allegro) & Trio ~ Adagio (La Maliconia) / Allegretto quasi Allegro
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) String Quartet in F
Allegro moderato - Très doux ~ Assez vif - Très rythmé ~ Très lent ~ Vif et agité
Canadian Warren Zielinski studied at the Rotal College of Music (RCM) winning an Exhibition scholarship, Concerto trials and numerous prizes while studying modern and Baroque violin. He has been working professionally since 1996 and has performed and recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, BBC Symphony & Concert Orchestras, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the John Wilson Orchestra. As a Baroque violinist, Warren has performed with ensembles such as the New London Consort, La Serenissima, Gabrielli Consort, Musicians of the Globe, Avison Ensemble and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Warren is also in demand for session work. He has played on 500+ Pop tracks and over 100 of the biggest and well-known Hollywood film scores.
Patrick Kiernan studied at the Royal College of Music where he founded the Brindisi Quartet, which appeared at many of the world’s great concert halls and broadcast regularly on BBC radio. The Quartet’s CD recordings achieved international acclaim, winning a Gramophone award. Patrick has studied chamber music with the Prague, Guarneri and LaSalle Quartets and has coached ensembles at the Britten-Pears School, the University of Ulster and the Royal College of Music. He has played frequently with the Nash Ensemble and was a principal player with both the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and the London Sinfonietta. He has appeared as guest leader with the City of London Sinfonia. Patrick plays on an early 19th century violin by Ceruti.
Martin Loveday was born in Zimbabwe and began his musical studies soon after moving to England in 1964. He was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music where he won numerous prizes for solo and chamber music performances as well as a scholarship to continue his studies with Pierre Fournier in Geneva. Martin was a founder member of the Hanson String quartet making several recordings – one of which was voted “record of the year” by the Guardian newspaper. He then joined the Hartley Piano Trio and now divides his time between his session work and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. His cello was made in 1724 in Naples.
Bruce White graduated from the Royal Academy of Music a major prize winner both in chamber music and solo studies. Since leaving the R.A.M , Bruce has played or been a member of many ensembles including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, The Michael Nyman Band, ‘Nigel Kennedy does Hendricks’, Ballet Rambert and the London Session orchestra. Bruce is a regular faculty member at the Apple Hill Centre for chamber music in New Hampshire, aiding the continuing efforts of 'Playing for Peace’.
Programme Notes:
Beethoven devoted his first years in Vienna to mastering the genres popular in that city including piano sonatas, trios and duets. No doubt Beethoven's apparent trepidation when approaching the string quartet medium was a result of the immense shadow cast by Haydn, whose opp. 71 and 73 were composed in 1793, the year Beethoven began to study with the older master. To prepare himself for his eventual foray into the genre, Beethoven studied the works of others. In particular, he copied Haydn's op. 20, no. 1 in 1793-94, and Mozart's K. 387 and 464 while he was beginning work on op. 18. Beethoven's reinterpretation of movement roles is at its most substantial and forward-looking in the last of the op. 18 set. It is tempting to consider No. 6 as a work in five movements, but it becomes clear that "La Malinconia," the slow chromatic labyrinth preceding the Allegretto quasi Allegro finale, is actually part of the finale. "La Malinconia" twice insinuates itself into the lightweight Allegretto, and the point seems to be the great contrast between the two atmospheres, not any kind of thematic relationship. Such sudden changes in mood may depict the nature of melancholy.
The similarities between Maurice Ravel's only work for string quartet, the String Quartet in F major, and Claude Debussy's only work for string quartet, the String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10, can hardly be avoided or ignored. During the early years of his career, Ravel was frequently and sometimes vehemently criticized for having copied Debussy, and it was only later that musical society began to realize that, in the realm of piano music at least, it was equally possible that Debussy had imitated his younger colleague. With the String Quartet in F, composed in 1902 and 1903 and then revised up to 1910, however, Ravel seems more certain to have relied on Debussy's 1893 Op. 10; as emotionally, psychologically, and even structurally different as the two works are, one could never accuse them of having a language barrier. But, whereas Debussy's quartet is the work of a headstrong progressive still on his way to developing a mature, personal style, Ravel's is the work of an already mature artist more concerned with craftsmanship and traditional structure than with innovation. Not surprisingly, given their relative places in their careers when the two composers wrote their string quartets, Ravel's is the sounder piece of music and Debussy's is the more groundbreaking. Incidentally, Debussy, by all accounts, adored Ravel's piece, and though it makes the cut by just a couple of years, it is probably the most oft-played string quartet of the twentieth century. Ravel dedicated it to his teacher, Gabriel Fauré. The opening movement's pianissimo second theme is as hollow and melancholy as the first theme is warm and inviting. In the second movement, which serves as the Quartet's scherzo, Ravel moves into the pizzicato world already explored by Debussy in the scherzo movement of his String Quartet; the central portion (one hesitates to call it a "trio section") calls for the players to put mutes on their instruments. Bits of music from earlier in the Quartet can be heard, wearing new clothes, in the slow movement; likewise in the finale, which plunges straight into a frantic 5/4 meter bombast at its start, lightens up in the middle, and then ends in a blaze of zeal.
