MUSIC SELECTIONS
- Brahms: Quartet No. 2 in a minor, Op. 52, No. 2
- Intermission
- Tchaikovsky: Quartet No. 3 in E♭ minor, Op. 30
The Quatuor Danel was founded in 1991 and has been at the forefront of the international music scene ever since, with important concert performances worldwide and a row of groundbreaking CD recordings. The quartet is famous for their bold, concentrated interpretations of the string quartet cycles of Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Shostakovich, and Weinberg. Their lively and fresh vision on the traditional quartet repertoire has delivered them subsequent praise from public and press. The other part of their force lies in the collaboration with major contemporary composers such as Wolfgang Rihm, Helmut Lachenmann, Sofia Gubaidulina, Pascal Dusapin Jorg Widmann and Bruno Mantovani.
Russian composers have a special place in the Quatuor Danel’s repertoire. They have championed all string quartets by Shostakovich and recorded the complete cycle for Fuga Libera in 2005. This box-set was re-issued by Alpha and still counts as one of the benchmark interpretations of Shostakovich’ quartets. The Danel were the first quartet to record the other great string quartet cycle of the twentieth century: the 17 quartets by Mieczysław Weinberg. Their performance in Manchester and Utrecht was the first time ever live interpretation of the complete Weinberg cycle worldwide.