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557270 bk Octets US 2/9/06 1:09 PM Page 4 Kodály Quartet Attila Falvay, Violin I • Tamás Szabó, Violin II • János Fejérvári, Viola • György Éder, Cello MENDELSSOHN The members of the Kodály Quartet were trained at the Budapest Ferenc Liszt Academy, and two of the original players, the second violinist Tamás Szabó and viola player Gábor Fias, were formerly in the Sebestyén Quartet, which was awarded the jury’s special diploma at the 1966 Geneva International Quartet Competition and won first prize at the 1968 Octet in E flat major, Op. 20 Leo Weiner Quartet Competition in Budapest. Since 1970, with the violinist Attila Falvay, the quartet has been known as the Kodály Quartet, a title adopted with the approval of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture and Education. Recent additions to the quartet have been the cellist György Éder of the Éder Quartet and the violist János Fejérvári, who took part in the Quartet’s recording of Mozart Quintets. The Kodály Quartet has given concerts throughout Europe, in the then BRUCH Soviet Union and in Japan, in addition to regular appearances in Hungary both in the concert hall and on television. For Naxos the Quartet has made highly acclaimed recordings of string quartets by Ravel, Debussy, Haydn and Schubert. Octet in B flat major Auer Quartet Gábor Sipos, Violin I • Zsuzsanna Berentés, Violin II • Csaba Gálfi, Viola • Ákos Takács, Cello Kodály Quartet • Auer Quartet The Auer Quartet was formed in 1990 by students of the Budapest Ferenc Liszt Music Academy. Their tutors included András Mihály, György Kurtág, Ferenc Rados, and Sándor Devich, a founder member of the Bartók String Quartet. The ensemble’s name honours the world famous Hungarian violinist and teacher Lipót Auer (1845-1930). As guests of the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1991, the members of the ensemble attended the courses of the world-famous Amadeus String Quartet and those of György Pauk. From that date on, they were regularly invited to attend the master- courses of the Amadeus Quartet held in London and in Semmering until 1995. The Auer Quartet has won recognition at numerous Hungarian and international competitions. They won the first prize at the Leó Weiner Chamber Music Competition held at the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy in 1991, and second prize at the Viotti Competition held in Italy in 1992. In addition to being awarded the second prize at the Evian International String Quartet Competition held in France in 1993, the ensemble was also awarded the Special Prize of the music critics and that for the best Mozart performance. The quartet’s real break-through came in 1997, when the ensemble won First Prize at the Seventh London International String Quartet Competition, with Lord Yehudi Menuhin as chairman. They also won the special audience award, and the Sydney Griller Trophy for the best interpretation of a contemporary work. The Auer Quartet has been invited to leading concert halls, including the Wigmore Hall in London, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Casals Hall in Tokyo, among other venues, and to festivals including those of Edinburgh, Schwetzingen, Bath, Kuhmo, Cheltenham, the Prague Spring, and the Budapest Spring. The quartet has toured in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, India and North Africa. There have been collaborations with distinguished contemporaries, broadcasts and recordings. In 2000 the ensemble was awarded the Liszt-Prize by the Hungarian State. Zsolt Fejérvári Zsolt Fejérvári was a pupil of Zoltán Tibay at the prestigious Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. While still a student of the Academy, he was awarded a special prize at the International Competition of Markneunkirchen and became principal double bass player of the Munich Chamber Orchestra. Between summer 1994 and 1998 he led the double bass section of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, followed by four years spent in Switzerland with the Suisse Romande Orchestra. Since December 2002 he has been a member again of the Budapest Festival Orchestra. In 2003 he won the Sándor Végh Competition for musicians of the orchestra. 8.557270 4 557270 bk Octets US 2/9/06 1:09 PM Page 2 Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847): Octet in E flat major, Op. 20 dispersed’ (Wolkenzug und Nebelflor / erhellen sich von Berlin on 2nd October, 1920. Max Bruch (1838-1920): Octet in B flat major, Op. posth. oben. / Luft im Laub und Wind im Rohr / - und alles ist Bruch’s Octet in B flat major, one of his last works, zerstoben). The busy figuration is continued in the final was written in January and February 1920, seven months Born in Hamburg in 1809, eldest son of the banker after disagreements with the conductor Spontini, to found fugal Presto, its principal subject mounting through the before the composer’s death, and apparently a reworking of Abraham Mendelssohn and grandson of the great Jewish the Berlin Philharmonic Society the following year, instruments, from the initial entry of the second cello. The a recently composed string quintet. It is seemingly thinker Moses Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn, who took leading its semi-amateur orchestra in concerts with the perpetual motion of the movement nevertheless allows the modelled on Mendelssohn’s Octet, although the later the additional name Bartholdy on his baptism as a Berlin Singakademie. This was the ensemble that he led in addition of other thematic elements and explicit references substitution of a double bass for the second cello made the Christian, was brought up in Berlin, where his family Mendelssohn’s famous revival of Bach’s St Matthew to the preceding Scherzo. work into a possible item in string orchestra repertoire, settled in 1812. Here he enjoyed the wide cultural Passion in 1829, an enterprise in which he and his cellist Today Max Bruch is generally known only as the described then as Concerto for String Orchestra. The Octet opportunities that his family offered, through their own brother Julius had collaborated by helping to write out the composer of works for the violin. In addition to the Violin was played to the composer by the violinist Willy Hess and interests and connections. parts for the performance. Mendelssohn dedicated to Rietz Concerto in G minor, the popularity of which continues, his pupils. Manifested in a number of directions, Mendelssohn’s his Violin Concerto in D minor, the Octet and the Violin and, to the annoyance of the composer, eventually The tranquil principal theme of the opening Allegro early gifts, included marked musical precocity, both as a Sonata in F minor, Opus 4. Rietz died of consumption in overshadowed much of his other work, we hear from time moderato is entrusted to the first viola, continued by the composer and as a performer, at a remarkably early age. 1832 and Mendelssohn then dedicated to his memory the to time the Scottish Fantasy and the Second Violin first violin and leading to a second subject of more forceful These exceptional abilities received every encouragement slow movement of his String Quintet, Opus 18. Concerto. The fact that Bruch, in his day, was famous for contour. The central development of this broadly sonata- from his family and their friends, although Abraham The Octet in E flat major, in which Mendelssohn his large-scale choral works is forgotten. Between 1870 form movement returns at first to the mood of the opening, Mendelssohn entertained early doubts about the himself on occasion took the second viola part, was written and 1900 there were numerous performances of works with other earlier material explored before a suggested desirability of his son taking the profession of musician. in 1825 and immediately precedes in order of composition such as Odysseus, Frithjof or Das Lied von der Glocke, return of the first theme, postponed until its final return in a These reservations were in part put to rest by the advice of the concert overture A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with earning for the composer a reputation that momentarily more grandiose form, after a unison climax, as in Cherubini in Paris and by the increasing signs of the boy’s which the Scherzo has obvious affinities. It was conceived outshone that of Brahms. Mendelssohn’s Octet. The slow movement almost seems musical abilities and interests. in orchestral terms and is an astonishing feat of virtuosity Max Bruch was born in Cologne on 6th January, 1838, to recall Schumann’s Piano Quintet in the sinister Mendelssohn’s early manhood brought the from a sixteen-year-old, innovative in instrumentation and in the same year as Bizet. He studied there with Ferdinand suggestion of its E flat minor opening, before the entry of opportunity to travel, as far south as Naples and as far north in its treatment of the instruments. Considerable demands Hiller and Carl Reinecke. Extended journeys at home and the first violin with the principal theme of the movement. as The Hebrides, with Italy and Scotland both providing are made of the first violin, in a part written originally for abroad as a student were followed by a longer stay in The secondary thematic material, in B major and marked the inspiration for later symphonies. His career involved Rietz, for whom the work was intended as a birthday Mannheim, where his opera Loreley was performed in Andante con molto di moto, is introduced by the first violin him in the Lower Rhine Festival in Düsseldorf and a period present. Much use is made of the ascending figuration of 1863, a work based on a libretto by Geibel and originally with an accompaniment that includes the plucked notes of as city director of music, followed, in 1835, by the first subject, which is fully exploited, while a secondary intended for Mendelssohn, which brought him to the the first cello.