Presenting an unimaginable sequence of live shows starting from classical to modern music, the Strijkkwartet Biënnale Amsterdam punches properly above its weight to the delight of its admiring worldwide viewers

Cuarteto Casals. (Picture: Rob van Dam Picture)

Primarily constructed with a metal body and glass-wrapped partitions, every stage of the Muziekgebouw is supported by three structural frames whereas the general design of the constructing is a putting instance of contemporary, functionalist, industrial-based structure providing an city beacon neatly perched on Amsterdam’s waterfront.

Three distinctive efficiency areas are wrapped up within the Muziekgebouw: a multifunction foremost auditorium seating 800 to 1000, the intimate BIMhuis, particularly designed for jazz and improvised music displays seating 350 to 400 whereas a smaller 100-seat venue is good for small gatherings and academic functions.

Slicing-edge acoustic know-how, offering optimal-sound transmission, is most actually on the forefront of its design. As an illustration, the Grand Corridor enjoys unparalleled flexibility and options movable partitions, flooring and ceilings thereby permitting for fast reconfiguration of the corridor at ‘a contact of a button’ thus making it appropriate for a variety of musical genres starting from string quartets to symphony orchestras.

To make sure superior acoustics, the principle corridor is a sealed concrete-box shell – a field inside a field constructed contained in the bigger constructing – thereby offering sound insulation from the skin world not too dissimilar to the development of the auditorium of London’s Royal Competition Corridor. However the exterior world jumps instantly into view from the Muziekgebouw’s public areas providing a beautiful, breathtaking, panoramic skyline thereby making a dramatic waterfront assertion.

Three major colors, pure concrete, black and lightweight maple wooden, cowl the ground space and the slatted wood panelling of the principle auditorium shielding and adorning the concrete-constructed shell completely enhances performances whereas the ever-changing, pastel-coloured lighting state of affairs provides to the general pleasure and delight of attending a live performance on the Muziekgebouw.

Extremely acclaimed Dutch violinist, Liza Ferschtman – who performs on most of the world’s main levels and has directed the Delft Chamber Music Competition since 2007 – not solely loudly applauds the pageant however waxes lyrical concerning the Muziekgebouw, too, the place she has given numerous live shows each as soloist or with a quartet or orchestra.

‘The constructing is just lovely from the second you step inside it,’ she emphatically says. ‘It’s a refreshing and stress-free setting through which to carry out and, certainly, to listen to music. I notably admire the view of Amsterdam from the Muziekgebouw particularly at sundown – it’s breathtaking to say the least.’

Ms Ferschtman additional added: ‘I all the time admire the corridor’s inside. The slatted wooden-panelled partitions, as an illustration, add greater than a contact of heat and environment to the general high quality of the corridor’s setting and, certainly, the pleasure of attending a live performance on the venue whereas the good acoustics stay an important factor to me as a musician as a result of they are often tailored to the kind of music being carried out – and that’s distinctive and actually wonderful. A flexible venue, too, it will possibly accommodate a variety of musical performances: the Grote Zaal is phenomenal and might be rearranged to create quite a lot of totally different configurations and because the corridor is a snug and intimate measurement you by no means really feel that you just’re wallowing in a sea of area.’

Since its opening in summer season 2005, the Muziekgebouw has grow to be a well-liked meeting-place for each locals and guests alike however over the course of eight valuable, inventive and thrilling days within the month of January, the Strijkkwartet Biënnale Amsterdam (SQBA) – the world’s largest string quartet pageant celebrating its fifth version this 12 months – takes over the entire shooting-match whereas attracting in extra of 10,000 aficionados of the string quartet style to take pleasure in a bunch of carefully-curated programmes harbouring essentially the most cherished classics of the string quartet repertoire peppered with a number of hidden gems right here and there for good measure.

This 12 months’s pageant witnessed over 50 live shows in addition to a sequence of talks, masterclasses and so forth whereas a bunch of younger fledgling string quartets provided pre-show leisure within the expansive and stress-free public area of the Muziekgebouw thus creating a pleasant, pleasant and convivial environment to get issues off to a superb begin that festivalgoers lapped up principally with a glass of wine of their hand!

A brand new initiative this 12 months ushered within the ‘tremendous romantic morning live performance’ sequence beginning at 9.30am (Cor blimey, Mary Poppins, too early for me!) that includes quartets by Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Brahms with espresso talks, hosted by BBC journalist, Katy Hamilton and the ‘afternoon extending string quartet’ sequence exploring the boundaries of the string quartet style.

Because the day unfolds, a unique quartet shares their private favourites in a sequence of casual-style late afternoon live shows entitled ‘Chosen by . . .’ whereas all the principle night live shows function an array of thrilling worldwide string quartets and a ‘basic’ late-night occasion witnesses world-renowned ensembles performing Beethoven.

Chiaroscuro Quartet with Olga Pashchenko (Picture: Juri Hiensch)

Subsequently, for my late-night deal with I used to be within the firm of the Chiaroscuro Quartet (Alina Ibragimova / Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux, violins; Emilie Hörnlund, viola; Claire Thirion, cello) enjoying a uncommon work by the famed Sixteenth-century Dutch composer/organist, Jan Sweelinck Chromatische Fantasie and Beethoven’s String Quartet No.12 in E flat main, Op.127 – the ‘first’ of his late quartets.

They offered an extra live performance teaming up with fortepianist, Olga Pashchenko, performing a pleasant and entertaining programme opening with a trio of Purcell’s Fantasies and persevering with with a trio of works by Mozart: Fantasie KV 396 and Piano Concertos 12 and 14 with members of this nice quartet providing authenticity of their presentation by acting on gut-strings utilizing historic bows.

Nonetheless, I used to be notably taken by the ‘younger bloods’ of the Netherlands-based Animato Kwartet comprising Inga Våga Gaustad, Tim Brackman, Elisa Karen Tavenier, Pieter de Koe. Based in 2013, the members of this ‘progressive’ quartet are most actually an brisk and driving bunch of musicians extensively thought-about to be one of the crucial promising of their sort knocking around the Netherlands right this moment.

And with acclaimed Kurdish soloist, Khorshid Dadbeh, they excelled themselves enjoying a brand-new work for string quartet and tanbur by Iranian-Dutch composer, Aftab Darvishi, who graduated from the College of Tehran in 2010 and later earned a grasp’s diploma in composing for movie from the Conservatorium Van Amsterdam below the steerage of Jurre Haanstra in 2012.

She additionally studied Karnatic music with Rafael Reina, the classical music custom of southern India recognized for its complicated melodies (ragas) and rhythms (talas) with a robust emphasis on vocal efficiency, improvisation and devotional compositions primarily in Sanskrit and Telugu. Darvishi accomplished her composition research with Martijn Padding and Yannis Kyriakides on the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in 2015.

An emblem of Iran’s wealthy musical heritage and greater than a thousand years outdated, the tanbur is a stringed instrument with deep, historic roots in Iran and has developed over the centuries with variations in design and enjoying methods. Open to experimentation, Dadbeh enjoys improvisation, subsequently this made her the right tanbur participant for Darvishi’s new work the place her improvisation expertise got here to the fore.

Presenting her music at varied festivals in Europe, the USA and Asia, Darvishi works with a number of ensembles such because the Kronos Quartet, Hermes Ensemble, Orkest De Ereprijs, Riccioti Ensemble, Oerknal Ensemble, Ragazze Quartet, Phion Orchestra, Cappella Amsterdam, BBC Singers and Doelen Ensemble. She has additionally participated within the Twentieth Younger Composers’ Assembly at Apeldoorn, Netherlands in 2014 and a 12 months later on the Holland Competition.

The mature prize-winning quartet, Cuarteto Casals (Abel Tomàs, Vera Martínez Mehner, Cristina Cordero, Arnau Tomàs) based in 1997 on the Escuela Reina Sofía, Madrid, have performed most of the world’s prestigious venues resembling Carnegie Corridor, Philharmonie Berlin, Cité de la Musique Paris, Philharmonie Paris, Konzerthaus, Musikverein in Vienna, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and now, in fact, the Muziekgebouw Amsterdam. They provided clever readings of Shostakovich’s first three string quartets which established the composer’s deeply contemplative and haunting type thereby defining his chamber music legacy.

The primary quartet, a pleasant naive piece, filled with joie de vivre, gave method to the wartime pressure and pressure of the second whereas the third, extra profound and emotionally charged, evoked the senses in an intense and deeply felt efficiency with the ultimate cost coming within the ‘scherzo’ furiously and remarkably performed wowing an admiring home.

And so did the Czech-based Pavel Haas Quartet (Veronika Jarůšková, Marek Zwiebel, Šimon Truszka, Peter Jarůšek) based in 2002 and named in honour of Czech composer, Pavel Haas (21 June 1899-17 October 1944) murdered by the Nazis.

Based by Jarůšková after she attended a live performance by the Škampa Quartet through which her husband, Peter Jarůšek, was the cellist, the quartet performed to their hearts’ content material delivering a stunning trio of works by Dvořák comprising Cypresses Nos. 1, 6, 12 and quartets 11 and 14 – a refreshing change from the ‘American’ quartet!

ADAM Quartet with Elisabeth Hetherington (Picture: Rob van Dam Picture)

An award-winning ensemble, their début album, that includes quartets by Pavel Haas and Leoš Janáček, acquired the 2007 Gramophone award for Chamber Music whereas in 2011 their recording of Dvořák’s String Quartets Op.106 and Op.96 gained Gramophone’s ‘Recording of the Yr’ award – the publication’s highest accolade.

A staggering programme was gifted and well-performed, too, by the ADAM Quartet that includes Canadian-born soprano Elisabeth Hetherington (now residing within the Netherlands) who has earned a formidable repute as an interpreter of early, modern and the trendy repertoire thereby harbouring a passionate advocate for multidisciplinary performances and, subsequently, an ideal alternative for Boris Peters and Vinthya Perinpanathan’s new interdisciplinary work Future Echoes receiving its world première and one of many highlights from my perspective of this 12 months’s Strijkkwartet Biënnale.

This inventive deuce skilfully delivered an all-encompassing work primarily based around the 4 actions of Schönberg’s String Quartet No.2 in F sharp minor, a pivotal transitional work by this avant-garde composer who revolutionized Twentieth-century music by breaking with conventional tonality by growing free atonality and the twelve-tone approach. Shifting from late romantic tonality to atonality, the primary two actions of Schönberg’s second string quartet function a setting of two poems by German symbolist poet, Stefan George, ‘Litanei’ (Litany) and ‘Entrückung’ (Rapture), sung by a soprano exploring themes of ache, loss and religious transcendence.

Inside Peters/Perinpanathan’s realization of Future Echoes the previous, current and future got here collectively in a fusion of music, mild and design comprising a sequence of intriguing slow-motion video-projected patterns of gray and muted colors morphing into shades of pale inexperienced juxtaposed with fragmented summary photos of nature, the animal kingdom and the cosmos.

The opening and shutting items relate to Orlando di Lasso’s Musica, dei donum optimi and Vide homo, printed throughout the 12 months of the composer’s loss of life in 1594, tenderly and so emotionally sung by Elisabeth Hetherington. And within the context of the theme of this live performance, the previous was represented by Lasso’s items, the current by Schönberg’s string quartet and the long run by Perinpanathan’s new piece, Her Resistance for string quartet and soprano, which however utilised Schonberg’s pioneering notes.

Different works contained inside this chic, completely charming and convincing live performance comprised Vincenzo Galilei/Domenico Ferrabosco’s Io mi son giovinetta; Vincenzo Galilei/Cipriano de Rore’s Ancor che col partire; Vincenzo Galilei/Alessandro Striggio’s Fuggie speme mia and an extra work by Orlando di Lasso entitled Aurora lucis rutilat.

Shaped in 2013, the famend French quartet, Quatuor Arod (Jordan Victoria, Alexandre Vu, Tanguy Parisot, Jérémy Garbarg) delivered an inspiring live performance topped by Alexander Raskatov’s new piece, OASIA. The inspiration for Raskatov writing the work got here from Russian-born poet/playwright, Velimir Khelebnikov (1885-1922) who, by the way, performed a central half within the Russian Futurist motion, wrote the poem, O, Asia.

Written in seven comparatively brief actions, the work symbolizes common unity and employs using ‘campana di chiesa’ (church bell) performed on the discretion of the gamers with out strict adherence to the tempo or rhythm of the remainder of the piece. Subsequently, the three distinctive bell chimes heard within the closing bars added an additional dimension to the majesty and religious facet of the work.

The primary motion represents the emergence of the sound of area, the second hints at a type of incantation, a sure ‘shamanism’ whereas the third alludes to the gradual motion of Shostakovich ninth symphony and the fourth infuses the patterns of two historic cultures starting from outdated synagogue liturgy to the Slavonic liturgical chant of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Using the ritual of ‘shaman’ engulfs the fifth motion whereas the sixth spins spherical the thought of time which exists in most of the composer’s works with the seventh witnessing a divided quartet duetting an historic sort of orientalism with the viola half recalling an outdated tune recognized to the inhabitants of the Arctic (an space that the composer explored in his early travels) to precise the widespread spirit of historic musical cultures.

Nonetheless, one was again on acquainted territory with the Barbican Quartet (Amarins Wierdsma, Kate Maloney, Christoph Slenczka, Yoanna Prodanova) who provided an excellent account of Szymanowski String Quartet No.1 whereas their strategy to Ravel’s String Quartet in F main, courting from 1903, a piece influenced by Debussy, completely hit the mark.

Composed when Ravel was 28, the quartet’s a youthful and exuberant work conjuring up a shimmering impressionistic canvas inside a classical construction and peppered with modern, rhythmic and luminous textures right here and there, makes this work so interesting. Famend for its modern use of string textures, the rating shifts between lush romantic and lyrical melodies through which the Barbican Quartet clearly introduced out in an impeccable and flawless efficiency, particularly within the spirited and exhilarating final motion, which greater than marked and stamped the Barbican’s interpretation of this nice and interesting quartet which, I really feel, couldn’t be bettered however solely equalled.

And the way good it was to listen to a uncommon efficiency of Rebecca Clarke’s Poem for String Quartet, a brief, seven-minute, lyrical, haunting piece, that includes a sombre, emotional and delightful melody admirably performed to the delight of a discerning and appreciative home. Together with Comodo e amabile (Snug and amiable) the piece was rediscovered within the Nineties.

As an apart, Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) knew and labored with Ravel and carried out his music working below his path throughout a go to he made to England in 1928. Subsequently, how applicable it was to incorporate her piece within the Barbican Quartet’s well-planned programme.

Nonetheless, my time in Amsterdam was strictly restricted. Simply three days. However in that brief area of time, I acquired caught in and took in what I may handle on my first go to to the Strijkkwartet Biënnale. Each live performance I attended was a world-class occasion however the studying, scintillating and thrilling efficiency of Shostakovich’s ninth string quartet by the Frankfurt-based Malion Quartet, fashioned in 2018, comprising Alex Jussow, Miki Nagahara, Lilya Tymchyshyn, Bettina Kessler, was nothing however good particularly by the concentrated and distinctive enjoying of the frantic and thrilling ‘hell-for-leather’ finale. It had the home standing. Bravo!

E book the date: Strijkkwartet Biënnale Amsterdam 2028 – twenty ninth January to fifth February.