JERUSALEM QUARTET

As a friend who adores string quartets has repeatedly said, Haydn quartets require a high degree of...

Their concert was a reminder that sheer virtuosity - both individual and collective - is a delight in itself. The dry acoustic of the JW3's hall was a challenge for them in slow movements, but in fast movements like the will-of-the-wisp Trio of the Canzonetta in Mendelssohn's 1st quartet they danced joyously on elfin feet.

Their overall playing was especially vivid with both peacefulness and passion, when called for from the works in the program, evocatively closer to the surface of the music than in many string quartet performances.

La formation israélienne fondée il y a près de 30 ans est une habituée de la métropole, ayant été invitée dans le passé par Pro Musica, le LMMC et le Festival de musique de chambre de Montréal. Sa dernière venue, il y a deux ans, était sous l’égide de ce dernier, presque au même moment que le Quatuor Dover qui, hasard du calendrier, jouait aussi de nouveau mercredi passé à la salle Bourgie.

Conversation just before this concert started concerned Verdi’s Il trovatore and the truism that it needs “the four greatest voices in the world”. Whether or not the quartets we heard by Mozart, Prokofiev and Brahms demand the same in string terms, they all hit breathtaking levels of humanity, thanks to the singing interaction of the Jerusalems, th...

The last time that the Jerusalem Quartet visited the area was before the pandemic. The distinguished Israeli ensemble almost missed their concert here Sunday afternoon, presented by Candlelight Concert Society, when their morning flight from North Carolina was canceled. After driving all day, they made it to the Horowitz Center in Columbia with jus...

The second movement of Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E minor op.44 no.2 is peppered with tiny sizzling tremolos, which in this reading by the Jerusalem Quartet seemed apt embodiments of the group’s energy level. The rest of the score – even the Andante that followed – was imbued with similar passion. Though the ticklish finale might have seemed i...

We lost so much in 2020: above all, the lives of people across the world, more than 70,000 in this country alone. Even if the deaths were to stop right now — they will not — the trauma as well as the long-term physical consequences will haunt many of us for the rest of our lives. The social and cultural consequences seem likely in anything other th...

Schön, dass dieses Konzert stattfinden kann. Denn trotz steigender Infektionszahlen hält die Tölzer Reihe "quartettissimo" daran fest, dass ein Konzert mit geviertelter Auslastung besser ist als kein Konzert. Und deshalb spielt an diesem Abend das Jerusalem Quartet im Kurhaus. "Bis zur letzten Minute waren wir aufgeregt, ob das Konzert stattfinden ...

After a long absence — since early 2020 when the specter of pandemia intervened, forcing the cancellation of live performances worldwide — the Jerusalem Quartet performed at the Leo Rich Theater this past Wednesday, Oct. 27.

The faint plucking of strings, tuning up backstage, prompted a still the audience held, as they waited in reverence for this...

It has taken almost four years for the Jerusalem Quartet to complete its Bartók cycle for Harmonia Mundi. The first disc was reviewed here in April 2017, and this one was recorded (spaciously but analytically) in Berlin in 2019, during which time the same label also released a rival recording of all six quartets from the Heath Quartet (reviewed Aug...

Nach erstaunlich langer Frist von rund vier Jahren hat das Jerusalem Quartet nun seinen Zyklus mit den Streichquartetten Béla Bartóks komplettiert – um die Werke Nr. 1, 3 und 5. Trotz der großen Pause sind sich die vier Musiker in ihrem Ansatz treu geblieben. Sie kehren nicht plakativ die (vor allem rhythmischen) Effekte dieser Musik hervor, sie ta...

Für die einen gehören sie unumstößlich zum Kanon, für andere mögen die Streichquartette von Bartok ein Anknüpfungspunkt sein, um sich mit der musikalischen Entwicklung dieses Komponisten auseinander zu setzen. Denn Bartok hat sich seine gesamte Schaffenszeit über mit diesem Genre beschäftigt und hieran auch, anknüpfend bei Beethoven, seinen Stil en...

Jerusalem Quartet violist Ori Kam points to the scores themselves as evidence that Bartók didn’t conceive his music in a way that sought to confuse or confound the listener. ‘His notation is very easy to understand; he doesn’t hide what he means. It’s useful for us, of course, but translating simplicity on the page into sound is an enormous challen...

Madrid. 26-II-2020. Auditorio Nacional de Música. Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical [Liceo de Cámara XXI]. Cinco piezas para cuarteto de cuerda, de Erwin Schulhoff; Canciones de cabaret yidis, de Leonid Desyatnikov; Cuarteto de cuerda n.º 2, Op. 26, de Erich-Wolfgang Korngold. Jerusalem Quartet; Hila Baggio, soprano.

Gran concierto el llevado a ...

Madrid. Auditorio nacional. Liceo de cámara. 25-II-2020. Hila Baggio, soprano. Cuarteto de Jerusalén. Obras de Schulhoff, Desiatnikov y Korngold.
Digámoslo desde el principio: el espectáculo (espectáculo y concierto, todo junto) fue espléndido, de un nivel altísimo, y ahora nos fijaremos en detalles. Pero el título del concierto no era exacto, si s...

Während der Kulturpalast zur Montagsdemonstration der Pegida und dem dort erwarteten Gast Björn Höcke Flagge(n) zeigte (»Augen auf – Ohren auf – Herzen auf«), spielte drinnen das Jerusalem Quartet ein Konzert, das man nicht nur »besonders« nennen darf, sondern muß. Schließlich war es der erste Kammerabend im Saal der Herkuleskeule, die seit dem Umb...

"For what the Jerusalem Quartet referred to as the "hard core" audience members, this year’s SQBA presented Late Beethoven performed at a late hour, following the 8:15 evening concert. The Jerusalem’s showed their incomparable sense of timing in Beethoven’s op 132; the musical prayer of thanks that imbues the third movement with heavenly optimism w...

Innsbruck – Tanzphantasien, jiddisches Kabarett und wehmütige Walzerseligkeit: Mit dem Jerusalem Quartet und der Sopranistin Hila Baggio hieß es am Donnerstagabend im Rahmen des 3. Kammerkonzertes im Haus der Musik eintauchen in eine Welt der großen Emotionen.

Zum Auftakt „Fünf Stücke für Streichquartett (1923) des von Antonín Dvoˇrák auf den musi...

Bâti autour de chants yiddish, le programme du Quatuor de Jérusalem débute par Cinq pièces de Schulhoff et s’achève avec le plus sombre Quatuor n° 2 de Korngold.
Venu à l’idée du Quatuor de Jérusalem par une demande d’Harmonia Mundi de proposer un album original, le programme donné au Théâtre des Champs-Élysées se construit autour de trois ouvrages...

Plus de vingt-cinq ans d’existence, mais toujours la même audace : le Quatuor de Jérusalem a encore de l’énergie à revendre. Il n’en fallait pas moins pour défendre l’exigeant Quatuor n° 2 de Korngold, donner dans la caricature avec Schulhoff et jouer la comédie sur du Desyatnikov. De la musique juive donc en ce mercredi soir au Théâtre des Champs-...

The Jerusalem Quartet won this city’s classical music heart with their Celebrity Series of Boston debut in 2014, a rapturously received program of Haydn, Brahms and Shostakovich. A return engagement on Saturday — the group’s third Celebrity Series date — drew a surprisingly below-capacity crowd to Jordan Hall, even with a similarly fetching set of ...

The title of this superb release is something of a misnomer, as the only Yiddish music per se is a selection of five Polish songs from the prewar era. The arrangements (by Leonid Desyatnikov) and the renditions (by the quartet and soprano Hila Baggio) are ideally balanced between sweetness and sarcasm. The rest of the CD is devoted to works by two ...

The Jerusalem String Quartet never disappoints. Never. Whatever they play. It’s not just about perfection, but also, or perhaps mainly, about their attention to the story behind the notes. For their involvement in the pieces they play. And their search for the truth that may not even exist. But with this album they have gone far above themselves an...

Korn​gold: String Quar​tet No. 2; Schul​hoff Five Pieces for String Quar​tet; Desy​at​nikov: Yid​dish Hila Bag​gio (so​prano); Jerusalem Quar​tet Har​mo​nia Mundi HMM 902631 59:50 mins This ‘con​cept al​bum’ pays a per​sonal and orig​i​nal trib​ute to pre-war Jewish life in cen​tral Europe. The Jerusalem Quar​tet has as​sem​bled a well-con​trasted ...

INTERVIEW – A l’occasion de la sortie du dernier album du Jerusalem Quartet, The Yiddish Cabaret, et de leur concert au Printemps de la Grange, nous en avons profité pour poser quelques questions à Ori Kam (altiste) sur ce projet qui sonne comme un retour aux racines. Prochaine date en France ? Au Théâtre des Champs-Elysées le 27 novembre 2019.

Qu...

This chamber music on this album recreates the Jewish influence on cabaret music of the Weimar republic. It’s the music of the Yiddish culture of ‘lowbrow’ subjects and irony that was lost with the eradication of the Jewish population during the Nazi holocaust in Poland. Before the War, Poland was center of a thriving Jewish culture (art, music, fi...

This was the first of two concerts in which the Jerusalem Quartet would perform Bartók’s six string quartets. If there were slight frustration in my only being able to hear the first, it surely augured well for the second, which I look forward to hearing about, if not, alas, to hearing.

The particular, sometimes competing demands of early Bartók c...

Selbst wenn man es weiß, ist der Zusammenhang schwer herauszuhören. Sogar in der Interpretation vom Jerusalem Quartet, das auch bei Bartóks Streichquartett Nr. 4 in C-Dur von 1928 trotz neuer Spieltechniken, groovender Rhythmen und stellenweise minimalistischer Ostinati die kultivierte, feinsinnige Tongestaltung in traditioneller Manier beibehielt....

Bellissima inaugurazione della 58a Stagione di Musica da Camera a Pistoia. Nel primo concerto abbiamo ritrovato con piacere il Quartetto Jerusalem impegnato in un programma basato sugli stessi due autori nei quali l'avevamo ascoltato l'ultima volta, appena due anni prima, a Firenze: Beethoven e Bartòk.

Una decina d'anni separa i sei Quartetti dell...

Cada visita del Cuarteto de Jerusalén (Alexander Pavlovski, Sergei Bresler, Ori Kam y Kyril Zlotnikov) es recibida con un “sold out” en la taquilla. El público los adora (una amiga me confesaba “estar enamorada del cellista…”). Y no es extraño, ya que este cuarteto de cuerda, desde que se formó allá por 1993 y debutaran en 1996, siendo muy muy jóve...

Debussy rarely composed in standard forms, but that it was a choice is borne out in the mastery of the quartet and late sonatas. The Jerusalem Quartet's ear-opening performance of his only string quartet (paired with Ravel's) is the most edgy, enthralling, propulsive, frequently wrenching yet magnetically involving account of the piece I've ever he...

Paris. Maison de la Radio, Studio 104. 11-XII-2018. Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) : Quatuor à cordes en sol majeur op. 76 n°1. Claude Debussy (1862-1918) : Quatuor à cordes. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) : Quatuor à cordes n°10 « Les harpes ».
12-XII-2018. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) : Quatuor à cordes K. 458 « La chasse ». Maurice Ravel (187...

It is rare to have a full concert of string sextets, and it is rare indeed to find playing as beautiful as that provided by the Jerusalem Quartet and their two exalted collaborators, violist Pinchas Zukerman and cellist Amanda Forsyth. Radiant warmth and feeling flowed everywhere in this concert, starting from Richard Strauss’s lovely Sextet from C...

The husband-and-wife team of Pinchas Zukerman and Amanda Forsyth joined forces with The Jerusalem Quartet for a program of string sextets on Saturday, October 13 at Berkeley’s First Congregational Church. Featured works were Richard Strauss’s String Sextet from Capriccio, Verklärte Nacht by Arnold Schoenberg, and String Sextet in D minor, Souvenir ...

The song “I Won’t Steal Anymore” (composer and lyricist unknown) tells about a Jewish criminal who is incarcerated in a Warsaw jail sometime in the 1920s or ‘30s, and who declares his intention to turn over a new leaf: “I won’t steal anymore, I’ll just ‘take.’” The irony then becomes sharper: The criminal promises the Lord to follow his path, by wh...

Brahms felt that ‘Dvořák is never at a loss for an idea, unlike the rest of us. His music is so beautiful, refined and natural-sounding,’ while Dvořák reflected modestly in later life that ‘despite the fact I have moved a little in the great musical world, I remain what I always was: a simple Czech musician.’ Both statements sum up the life-enhanci...

Intégralement axé sur Dvořák et plus particulièrement sa période américaine, le concert du Quatuor de Jérusalem à l’Auditorium de Radio France commence par un Quatuor « Américain » particulièrement inspiré, avant de se poursuivre avec l’opus suivant, le Quintette à cordes, où figure aussi l’altiste Yura Lee. Le programme s’achève après l’entracte a...

Perhaps the most notable of this year’s composer anniversaries relates to Claude Debussy, who died 100 years ago on 25th March 1918. The past few months have seen a plethora of recordings of his music, and one of the highlights for me so far has been a recording due out next week from the Jerusalem Quartet of the String Quartet, coupled with Mauric...

Das Streichquartett gehört ja zu jenen Gattungen, die musikhistorisch eng mit der Hausmusik verbunden sind. Aber gute Güte, um ein Werk wie Bartóks erstes Streichquartett so zu spielen, dass diese komplexe Musik ihre Wirkung entfaltet, braucht es schon ein phänomenal gutes Ensemble - wie das Jerusalem Quartet bei seinem Konzert im Prinzregententhea...

The Jerusalem Quartet made quite a stylistic leap Thursday in Rice University's Stude Concert Hall. It opened its Chamber Music Houston program with Beethoven's Quartet in F minor, Op. 95, the "Quartetto Serioso." Then, skipping a century of musical evolution, the group launched into Leoš Janácek's Quartet No. 1, "The Kreutzer Sonata." And the play...

Qu’est-ce qui est plus haut que l’Everest et quel air y respire-t-on ? J’ai peine à décrire ce que nous avons vécu à la salle Pollack dimanche après-midi. Un concert ? Pas du tout. Une expérience de vie.

Pendant le Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo de l’Opus 135 de Beethoven, je pensais au légendaire commentateur des matchs de soccer en France Th...

Composers who don’t hesitate to pepper symphony manuscripts with fortissimos and unleash tympani and even organs during the finales somehow start to pump the brakes when it’s time to write string quartets. There’s something about the pure form that seems to make even the most witty and confident composers get serious.

And when the Jerusalem Quarte...

Haydn’s music, its very fabric, is steeped in wit: disobedient rhythms, downbeats masquerading as upbeats, strange harmonic twists, silences, mimicry, false endings. Try the “Surprise” Symphony No 94 or the “Joke” quartet, Op 33 No 3. It’s there even in works with no nickname or comic intention. The Jerusalem Quartet played three, early, middle and...

This coupling is a popular one, and with good reason. The Sextet marks the beginnings of Dvorák in “Slavonic” mode, with a second movement “Dunka” and a “Furiant” for a scherzo, while the String Quintet comes from his “American” period, with all that this entails as regards melody, harmony, and rhythm. Both works are drop-dead gorgeous, and so begu...

In our new column rounding up classical music on CD and online: Jerusalem Quartet and friends, three Magnificats from Arcangelo... and the Lancastrian bass on Radio 3

On the CD player as soon it arrived, this album of irresistible, larger scale chamber music – Dvořák’s String Quintet No 3, Op 97 and String Sextet, Op 48 – by the Jerusalem Quartet ...

München - Endlich einmal nicht nur Geläufiges: Neben dem berühmten "amerikanischen" Quartett op. 96 von Antonin Dvořák gab es dessen mitreißendes Streichquintett Op. 97 und das wunderbar pastorale Sextett Op. 48. Es werden nicht viele sein, die diese beiden Meisterwerke einmal im Konzert erlebt haben. Nun, das so vitale wie klangbedachte, so virtuo...

Since the mid-1990s, the Jerusalem Quartet has been slinging its unmistakable tone and adroit programming to audiences worldwide, and at last to Barnes Hall on Saturday night. What distinguishes Jerusalem Quartet from its umpteen contemporaries is its interlocking tonal spread, meticulous attention to rhythm and balance of repertoires. For this per...

Die Konkurrenz war groß, lockte doch die Sonne in die Parks und die Oper mit ihrem taufrischen „Ring“. Alle, die dennoch in den Mendelssohn-Saal des Gewandhauses fanden, wurden aber belohnt mit einem Quartettkonzert erster Klasse: Im Ramen ihrer Jubiläumstournee zum 20-jährigen Bestehen spielte das Jerusalem-Quartett ein Programm, das die klanglich...

Die sechs Streichquartette op. 18 nehmen in Beethovens Schaffen eine Schlüsselposition ein: Während er in den Formen von Sonate, Klaviertrio und Solokonzert früh Grosses und Eigenes vollbracht hatte, wartete er bis zu seinem 30. Lebensjahr, bevor er sich an die elitäre Gattung des Streichquartetts wagte und eine erste eigene Werkgruppe vorlegte. Da...

Zehn Jahre hätten Sie gebraucht, um mit einer Stimme zu sprechen, meinten die Musiker des hochverdienten Melos-Quartetts einmal. Zehn Jahre sind eine lange Zeit. Ehen, die so lange währen, bezeichnet man heute schon als besonders glücklich. Und dann noch eine Ehe zu viert. Die vier Musiker des Jerusalem Quartets feiern in diesem Jahr ihr 20jähriges...

Hamburg. Nach dem international gefeierten Zyklus aller Schostakowitsch-Quartette, der vor zwei Jahren auch die Hamburger Kammermusikfans begeisterte, widmet sich das Jerusalem Quartet jetzt den sechs Streichquartetten von Béla Bartók. Der erste von drei Abenden im kleinen Saal der Laeiszhalle deutete an, welche Botschaften das Ensemble beim ungar...

A good string quartet, wisdom has it, is like a single instrument with 16 strings. That sort of unity of sound and purpose is a given in any performance by the extraordinary Jerusalem Quartet, which on Thursday completed the opening leg of a marathon in which it will play all six Bartok quartets and the first six quartets by Beethoven within a sing...

After he finished his first set of string quartets, at 30, Beethoven felt he had finally mastered the genre. These excellent Israeli players offer richly characterized, stirring performances of these six pieces, their burnished sound notable in sections like the opening of No. 3 in D. They render No. 1 in F with a gracious charm and No. 4 in C mino...

CD-Tipp vom 25.9.2015

Das Jerusalem Quartett war einmal ein junges Nachwuchs-Ensemble. Aber das ist jetzt bald 20 Jahre her – im nächsten Jahr wird Geburtstag gefeiert. Höchste Zeit also, sich mit den Streichquartetten von Ludwig van Beethoven zu befassen – zum ersten Mal auf CD. Auch das ist ziemlich erstaunlich für ein Streichquartett, das der k...

Listening to this album is like watching a great tennis player delivering a winning shot, says Jessica Duchen, whose only gripe is a little bit of sameness through this unsettled music.

Beethoven’s Op.18 quartets were the composer’s first venture into a genre that he came to define for all who followed; these six early works would still be tremend...

Das Jerusalem Quartet hat jetzt zwei CDs mit Streichquartetten von Beethoven veröffentlicht, die sechs aus opus 18, chronologisch nach Kompositionsdatum geordnet. Meinolf Bunsmann hat das Album mit ins Studio gebracht.

Die britische "Times" berichtet von "Leidenschaft, Präzision und Wärme"als Erfolgsgeheimnis des Jerusalem Quartets. Das 1993 gegr...

Wenn Feierabend-Streicher Beethoven spielen wollen, fangen sie gern mit den sechs frühesten Quartetten op. 18 an; da sammelte der an Haydn Geschulte noch Erfahrung und ging technisch nicht aufs Ganze. So heißt es wenigstens. Das Jerusalem Quartet hat solch überkommene Meinungen nun einfach ignoriert. Seine neue Aufnahme (harmonia mundi) bricht mit ...

The six string quartets which make up his Op. 18 were composed in Beethoven’s late twenties, and consequently imbued with less of the youthful enthusiasm and optimism one might expect of a composer’s first explorations of a new form.

That’s somewhat tempered here by the Quartets being presented in chronological rather than numerical order, startin...

Zelfs Ludwig van Beethoven had last van debutantenangst. Haydn en Mozart hadden al meesterlijke strijkkwartetten afgeleverd, maar hij, de twintiger, had op dat vlak nog niets gepresteerd. Pas nadat een mecenas in 1798 de buidel had getrokken en zes stuks bestelde, doopte Beethoven zijn pen in de inkt.

Met de kwartetten opus 18 nestelde hij zich me...

With Haydn, Mozart and Schubert under their belt, it was only a matter of time before the Jerusalem Quartet turned their attention to Beethoven. Their only previous taster was a recording of Op 18 No 6, coupled with Ravel and Dvořák, from more than a decade ago. As you’d expect from this group, personality, integrity and lustrous tone are all high ...

A critic’s task in reviewing performances of standard repertoire is the observation and commentary on the interpretive prowess of the artists on stage. But during the Jerusalem Quartet’s absorbing concert Friday at Mandel Hall, I found myself preoccupied by bigger questions—the sunny surface of a Mozart quartet barely concealing an extraordinary we...

What music is played, and where, at the Jerusalem Quartet's Thursday concert for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society at the American Philosophical Society, was determined at least a year ago. And being one of the best of its kind, the string quartet played its Mozart/Bártok/Schumann concert with the commitment and artistry one has come to expect...

SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio -- At twenty-something years old, the Jerusalem Quartet is a fairly young ensemble, as things go in the music world. Since it came together in 1993, the quartet has seen only one change in personnel, while consistently earning high praise from audiences and reviewers around the world for its characteristic sound and artistry....

pecial to The Seattle Times

The Jerusalem Quartet made its Seattle debut Thursday night with a reputation as one of the more stellar groups to have emerged in the past couple of decades. It’s safe to say the quartet lived up to its accolades.



For the UW World Series at Meany Theater, the foursome — violinists Alexander Pavlovsky and Sergei Bre...

The frigid cold may have kept some listeners home, but it did not deter the Jerusalem Quartet from playing at Shriver Hall on Sunday evening. The ensemble arrived in Baltimore only a short time before the concert was scheduled to begin, because of weather-related flight troubles, and the cellist, whose suitcase was lost, wore jeans — but when they ...

Pour ses derniers concerts de l’année, le Quatuor Jérusalem a fait escale sur les rives du lac Léman. Au programme de deux soirées exceptionnelles – l’une au Conservatoire de Genève, l’autre à la Salle del Castillo à Vevey – figuraient le célèbre Quatuor n° 2 « Lettres intimes » de Leoš Janaček et les quatuors op. 18 n° 4 et 5 de Beethoven.

Dans s...

The concert of the acclaimed Jerusalem Quartet and the suddenly ubiquitous Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan at the 92nd Street Y on Saturday evening offered single-minded yet diverse pleasures. It was the middle program in a series of three, called “Intimate Brahms,” and it was Brahms all the way, but Brahms in a variety of forms, moods and colors.

I...

Bedrich Smetana and Leos Janacek wrote marvelous string quartets that simultaneously captured autobiographical elements and also made brilliant use of folk and folk dance elements, all transformed into powerful personal vehicles of pre- and early-modern expression. The Jerusalem Quartet have captured the excitement of the strong rhythmic dynamics, ...

...on this magnificent disc, from the viola's fierce attack in the Smetana's fourth bar, their high-voltage playing suits the music perfectly. It also brings out the kinship between the two composers. for all the uniqueness, the utter strangeness, of Janacek's idiom, his quartets are heirs of Smetana's E minor. Highly recommended. DC



SMETANA, ...

Le Quatuor de Jérusalem, ce sont des cordes magnifiquement soudées et homogènes – presque fondues. Mardi soir, au Conservatoire de Genève, c’est dans le Quatuor en fa majeur de Ravel que cette qualité a paru la plus évidente. Sonorités diaphanes et moirées, raffinement des textures, subtilité des inflexions: il se dégageait une atmosphère onirique ...

Few command Brahms's string quartet the way the Jerusalem do here in Op.51 No.2. Even the most reputable players can't always make the close-knit harmonies sound out, leaving the thematic transformations to peek out from behind layers of texture, resulting in music that seems remote. Immediacy certainly isn't lacking here, partly because the quarte...

...Make no mistake: this is musicianship of the highest order.

[The quartet is] now so finely attuned to each other’s’ musical sensibilities that their music-making is more instinctual than measured. Thus stimulating conversation and contrast are the order of the day: between first and second subjects; between fast and slow sections; between harmo...

No other composer had to endure pressure as Shostakovich did. It was written in his face, and rings through every bar of his music: pressure from the Soviets to stifle his voice, and inner pressure from that voice to be heard.

When politics made operatic work impossible he retreated into the intimacy of chamber music, embarking on the most majesti...

La Sociedad Filarmónica de Bilbao ha programado la interpretación de los cuartetos de cuerda de Shostakovich en cuatro sesiones, a desarrollar en dos temporadas consecutivas. En la 2013/2014 se ha iniciado el ciclo con la interpretación de los números –en orden de interpretación- 1, 5, 6, 12 y 4, 8, 10 y 11, y los restantes se escucharán en la temp...

Hamburg. Das Komponistendasein zur Sowjetzeit war für Dmitri Schostakowitsch eine heikle Gratwanderung. Einerseits sollte er gefälligst staatstragende Jubelware abliefern, wie sie Stalin von jedem Genossen Künstler verlangte, andererseits wollte er seine eigenen Ideen und Zweifel aber nicht komplett verleugnen. Deshalb wählte er den intimen Rahmen ...

Es hat etwas charmant Subversives zur ammermusik im Mendelssohn-Saal es Gewandhauses zu gehen, derweil m Großen Saal gewissermaßen der är steppt – also beispielsweise aus unk und Fernsehen bekannte Größen ieder und Schnurren zum Besten geben. ann müssen die Damen an der arderobe fragen, ob man auch wirklich ur Kammermusik wolle, löst man ich irgend...

Wie unzulänglich und irreführend Worte über Musik sein können beweisen immer wieder die Werke von Dmitrij Schostakowitsch. Dessen Musik ist so reich an bedeutungsvollen Zitaten, musikalischen Anspielungen und Doppelbödigkeiten, dass sie im Laufe der Jahrzehnte die gegensätzlichsten Deutungen provozierte. Je nach ideologischem Standort sahen Musikol...

Wir treffen uns vor einer Nachmittagsprobe in einem Restaurant an einem kleinen Hafenbecken von Maastricht. Der Frühling ist angekommen, es ist Ende April und die vier Streicher scheinen glücklich über die Sonne zu sein, die sie aus ihrer Heimat Israel im Überfluss gewohnt sind. Seit einiger Zeit sind sie unterwegs, spielen auf dieser Tour nicht we...

Thankfully we have passed beyond the era when clarinettists thought of the Brahms Quintet as a quasi-concerto, though few have gone quite so far in the opposite direction as Sharon Kam, whose playing for much of the time melts into the string textures. The result is by far the most intrinsically beautiful performance of the work that I have ever en...

Thankfully we have passed beyond the era when clarinettists thought of the Brahms Quintet as a quasi-concerto, though few have gone quite so far in the opposite direction as Sharon Kam, whose playing for much of the time melts into the string textures. The result is by far the most intrinsically beautiful performance of the work that I have ever en...

In Shostakovich’s career, pockmarked with forced commissions, attempts to placate Soviet officials and humiliating bouts of censorship, his string quartets occupy a special place. Many critics have likened them to a confessional into which the composer confided the fears and hopes he had to suppress in public. But most of all, the 15 quartets repre...

Like a man writing his own obituary Dmitri Shostakovich composed his String Quartet No. 8 as a requiem for himself, weaving it together with an autobiographical motif consisting of the letters D-S-C-H.

These letters — the first four of D. Schostakowitsch, the German spelling of his name — are translated to musical notes as D, E flat, C and B. The ...

Wolf – Italian Serenade

Mozart – String Quartet no.22 in B-flat major, KV 589

Smetana – String Quartet no.1 in E minor, ‘From my life’

The Jerusalem Quartet’s latest visit to the Wigmore Hall opened with a sunny performance of Wolf’s Italian Serenade. Full of life, there was, as ever with this quartet, never the slightest hint of routine. Medite...

The nondescriptly charcoal-suited members of the Jerusalem Quartet did not look like time travellers, unless it was as a visiting ensemble from East Germany, circa 1982. But appearances counted for nothing once the music started, and we were transported back to 1790 and Mozart’s String Quartet K589, the second of his three Prussian quartets.

Or ra...

There's a mathematical spinoff of a Zeno paradox that says you can never reach your destination. To get somewhere, you first must travel halfway to it, but from there you need to pass the midpoint of the remaining distance. You end up getting closer and closer, but never reaching the goal.

Performing music is not unlike this. Musicians never feel ...

Sometimes an encore tells you everything about a band. That’s how it was in New Orleans on Wednesday, as the Jerusalem String Quartet closed a vibrant night of music making with the haunted slow movement from Debussy’s only quartet.

The crowd, which had called the group back for repeated bows, fell into breathless silence as Dixon Hall filled with...

Come March 2013, the Jerusalem Quartet offers a complete cycle of Shostakovich’s 15 string quartets at Lincoln Center. Wednesday evening at Rackham Auditorium, Ann Arbor audiences got a small, but potent sample of the riches in store for New York when the Jerusalem Quartet opened the University Musical Society Chamber Series with two Shostakovich q...

Hooray for the Cleveland Chamber Music Society -- and everyone else who savors music-making of intimate magnetism. After too many years enduring the acoustical haze of Fairmount Temple Auditorium in Beachwood, the society this season has taken up residence in the crystal-clear sonic environment of Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights.

Listeners no lo...

...The Jerusalem Quartet, who last month won their third BBC Music magazine award for a recent Mozart recording, are at the peak of their career, still youthful yet playing with the wisdom of 20 years' experience. In the Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov they have a collaborator of rare musical intelligence as well as virtuosity. Another award con...

For this sublime disc the Jerusalem Quartet chooses one 'Italian' work, one 'Haydn' and one 'Prussian'. The playing in the three-movement early piece is alert and very beautiful: the wistful Andante is touchingly done, at a plausible tempo.

The 'Hunt' opens with an easy spring to its step and, although the playing is never tense, the attention is ...

The first time I listened to this, I loved it; the second time, not so much. But the third time, I loved it again. I think I've collected all but one of the Jerusalem Quartet's recordings, and every one of them has only further confirmed my belief that this Israeli ensemble is, technically at least, on a par with the Emerson and two or three other ...

...The program opened with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quartet in G major (op. 18, no. 2). This piece is heard every year courtesy of the Slee Beethoven Cycle at the University at Buffalo and, as a result, has a familiarity factor built into it for area chamber music fans.

Particularly impressive in this performance was the way the quartet handled the ...

Few chamber ensembles produce the sheer beauty of tone of the Jerusalem String Quartet. The four young musicians, who performed Sunday at the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, present a corporate tone that practically glistens, led by the seamless, honeyed playing of first violinist Alexander Pavlovsky.

While some of our most eminent—and ven...

Dallas — In a superb lesson in how to accommodate different musical styles without losing a unique musical voice, the Jerusalem String Quartet journeyed through an elegant Mozart, a fevered Brahms, and a brash Shostakovich. Dallas Chamber Musicpresented the group at Southern Methodist University's Caruth Auditorium on Monday evening as part of thei...

This fine quartet, formed in 1993 when the members were conservatory students in Jerusalem, has made a series of recordings for Harmonia Mundi, none better than a pair of discs of Shostakovich quartets. No surprise, then, that Shostakovich’s eighth quartet stood out on this program, too, for the vigor of the interpretation, which kept one on the ed...

Das ,Jerusalem Quartett' ist den Kammermusikfreunden im Konzerthaus noch in guter Erinnerung: Im Rahmen einer Zeitinsel spielte das Ensemble sämtliche Streichquartette von Dmitri Schostakowitsch. Auch am Freitag gab es ein Quartett des russischen Komponisten zu hören: Die Nr. 4, sein Opus 83, gestalteten die vier weltweit aktiven Künstler in einer ...

Wattens – Wie übermächtig Beethovens Schatten in den Komponierstuben nachfolgender Generationen noch stand, zeigt sich bis Johannes Brahms, der aus Scheu vor dem Streichquartett sich erst einmal – wie unverbindlich im Serenadenton – an Sextette heranmachte. Als er schließlich das Streichquartett erreichte, war Beethoven als Lehrmeister unverkennbar...

Es ist eine eingeschworene Fangemeinde, die sich Dienstag Abend zum Auftakt des 8. Kammermusikfestivals „Musik im Riesen“ in den Swarovski-Kristallwelten einfand. Bis Sonntag gilt das Augenmerk den Streichquartetten. Den Auftakt machte das renommierte „Jerusalem Quartet“ mit Johannes Brahms.

Virtuosität und Klarheit der Artikulation charakterisier...

"Jerusalem Quartet Harmonia Mundi Mozart's string quartets do not divide quite as neatly into early, middle, and late periods as do Beethoven's. Nevertheless, the Jerusalem Quartet creates an instructive and highly enjoyable recording by choosing quartets widely spaced in the composer's career. The quartet play with a nicely blended sound and a kee...

Passion, precision, warmth, a gold blend: these are the trademarks of this excellent Israeli string quartet. And the repertoire, drawn from three different periods of Mozart's life, is marvellous. From the teenage triumph of K157 to the mature subtleties of K589, each example extends the genre's boundaries. Highlights? The finesse of phrasing in K4...

The Jerusalem Quartet adopts what you might call a full-on approach to Mozart. The tone is luscious and anything but vibrato shy. The speeds are unpressured, and the players like to convey the way their four lines mesh together, producing rich blends of sound, and capturing the internal frictions of passing moments in a way that makes the music com...

Every deft switch of mood is caught to near-perfection "Their wonderfully full and vibrant sound is channelled through rhythms and phrasings that are crisp, tight-reined, and naturally flowing. Every deft switch of mood is caught to near-perfection, especially in those roguish Presto finales. And the slow movements have a dry-eyed warmth of express...

The Jerusalem Quartet's latest recording of Haydn Quartets is an absolute triumph. Their playing has everything you could possibly wish for. Miraculously honed intonation and perfect ensemble is matched troughout by an innate understanding of Haydn's mercurial and immensely varied musical language. A veiled sence of melancholy hangs over the openin...

The Jerusalem is one of the most exciting string quartets to emerge for many years, its members' outstanding technical accomplishment and musical insight belying their youth.

...what distinguishes this particular quartet is its sense of refinement and natural feeling for line, coupled with a fever-pitch intensity and commitment to the music. Music...

If Haydn himself were able to listen to his celebration this year, he would undoubtedly be thrilled with the Jerusalem Quartet`s readings of his music. This ensemble performs as one mind, yet within its unity of purpose the individual strands are allowed to weave their way into the narrative.

The players judiciously selected works reflecting diffe...

All of them only in their early 20s, one can only imagine how far they'll go. It was as fine a night of string quartet playing as I've heard in a long time. Normally it takes years and years to develop such a blend of voices and such a spectrum of colours. They have loads of energy and passion and the control, finesse and sophistication to go with ...

As part of Wigmore Hall's Haydn celebrations, on Tuesday the Jerusalem Quartet played four of his 68 quartets, including the early, melancholy Op 20 No 5 in F minor and the ravishing, expansive Op 77 No 1 in G major. To describe exactly how these players achieved such mesmerising results - an imaginative use of raw, unison down-bows in the trio of ...

The Jerusalem Quartet has won many fans in Australia during its residency with Musica Viva and it's easy to see why. These four young men - Alexander Pavlovsky and Sergei Bresler on violin, Amichai Grosz on viola and Kyril Zlotnikov on cello - have been playing together for almost half their lives.

Originally students at the Jerusalem Music Centre...

A few bars into Smetana's From my Life Quartet, it was clear this was an event, the likes of which could not be equalled in Wigmore Hall or the Lincoln Centre. String quartets do not come any better than the Jerusalem.

The passionate playing of violist Amichai Grosz illuminated Smetana's first pages, leading to some stormy outbursts from the whole...

Seat prices may have been high for the Jerusalem Quartet in the Glenroy Auditorium but it was worth every dollar to hear such a superb group.

There were moments in Saturday night's concert when the four strings played as one. There was extraordinary precision in the finale of the Haydn 'Bird' quartet where rapid runs were tossed off with seeming e...

String quartet fatigue is bound to set in this time of the season. So far, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society has brought in 12, all quite reputable and some truly exceptional. Overlooking the Philadelphia debut of the Jerusalem Quartet on Monday would have been easy but unfortunate, since this extraordinary foursome arrived at the Kimmel Cen...

Its most immediately striking quality is the vibrancy, flexibility and homogeneity of its sound: the first violinist's tone in particular is extraordinarily beautiful and intense. The players are technically extremely good, their ensemble is flawless and they can weave a seamless tapestry of lines and voices. Everything they do is carefully planned...

The best-trained string players with Alexander Pavlovsky, who had a particularly colourful sound, correspond with each other with instinctive sureness.It was magical playing, which also caressed the soul and made this a very pleasant evening concert....

What variety of colour the Jerusalem Quartet brought, characterfully underplaying the music; the cellist Kyril Zlotnikov was mesmerising...

With great lustre and control, these were near-definitive performances ... the Jerusalem Quartet's performances are even more magnificent this time ...

absolute assurance by these young players, their confident attack and nigh-on flawless ensemble playing, impressive throughout its substantial span...

The Jerusalem Quartet, one of the world's finest young chamber ensembles ... The group's splendid musical rapport, shining tone and bold phrasing were distinctive...

the Jerusalem Quartet's tensile energy and concentrated intensity made for spirited and often riveting music making ...

My personal favourite among the four (quartets) for their impeccable blend, and the wonderful tone of the leader, Alexander Pavlovsky, which is best described as a fiery sweetness.Since they formed ......

My personal favourite among the four (quartets) for their impeccable blend, and the wonderful tone of the leader, Alexander Pavlovsky, which is best described as a fiery sweetness.Since they formed at the Jerusalem Music Centre in 1993 their career has been a triumphal ascent....

Whenever Shostakovich gives these fine players a chance to sing, they touch the heart in this music as very few before
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