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year also took top prizes at Chamber Music Yellow Springs (OH) Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. In September 2004, the quartet was awarded second prize and the Pièce de concert prize at the Eighth Banff International Competition, and the following month, the ensemble was featured in a Ignaz national broadcast of Minnesota Public Radio’s long-running programme Saint Paul Sunday. Summer 2005 brought concerts at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium and at the Honest Brook, Mohawk Trail, and Cooperstown Chamber Music Festivals, to be followed by concerts in New York at Merkin Concert Hall and a PLEYEL Lincoln Center début. The ensemble’s recording of the six string quartets, Op. 2, of Ignaz Pleyel, marks the quartet’s recording début and a first recording that, in two releases, includes the complete set of quartets. The Enso¯ String Quartet has performed at festivals throughout the United States and abroad since its inception in 1999, including featured appearances at such music festivals as La Jolla SummerFest, Chautauqua Institution, Green String Quartets, Op. 2 Nos. 4-6 Lake Festival (WI), and the Great Lakes Music Festival. Internationally, the quartet has performed for the Asociación Nacional de Conciertos in Panama, the Tuckamore Festival in St John’s, Newfoundland, toured Costa Rica as guest artists in the Twelfth International Costa Rica Music Festival, and were selected for a two-week Enso¯ Quartet residency at France’s Académie européenne de musique d’Aix-en-Provence. For two years the quartet was graduate Quartet-in-Residence at Rice University, followed by appointment as Guest Quartet-in-Residence, in addition to residencies at Northern Illinois University and at the Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme at Aldeburgh. The Enso¯ String Quartet draws together four young musicians from around the world. Its members hold degrees from the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, University of Indiana, Royal Northern College of Music (UK) and the University of Canterbury (New Zealand). The members of the ensemble met while pursuing graduate degrees at Yale University, where they later worked with the Tokyo String Quartet. Other prominent musicians with whom the group has worked include members of the Cleveland, Alban Berg, and Takács quartets, Joseph Silverstein, and composer Joan Tower. The quartet’s performances have been broadcast on PBS, Chicago’s WFMT, Wisconsin Public Radio and Canada’s CBC radio. The ensemble’s name, enso¯, is derived from the Japanese zen painting of the circle which represents many things; perfection and imperfection, the moment of chaos that is creation, the emptiness of the void, the endless circle of life, and the fullness of the spirit.

Scores and parts for the works featured on this recording are available from: ARTARIA EDITIONS LTD PO Box 9836 Te Aro Wellington, NEW ZEALAND http://www.artaria.com The sources upon which the editions used in this recording have been made are: String Quartet in E flat major, Op. 2 No. 4 Edited by Dianne James - Artaria Editions AE235 Graeffer print [1784]:Vienna, Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde String Quartet in B flat major, Op. 2 No. 5 Edited by Dianne James - Artaria Editions AE236 Graeffer print [1784]:Vienna, Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde String Quartet in D major, Op.2 No.6 Edited by Dianne James - Artaria Editions AE248 Graeffer print [1784]:Vienna, Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde

8.557497 4 557497 bk Pleyel2 US 12/29/05 9:17 AM Page 2

quartets [possibly the Op.1 set which was issued in quartet). Significantly, all but one of the works are in Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831) 1784], commended them enthusiastically to his father: three movements: the exception is the fourth quartet in String Quartets, Op. 2 Nos. 4-6 You will find them worth the trouble. They are very E flat which adds a brief 29-bar Minuet between its slow well written and most pleasing to listen to. You will also movement and finale. The slow movements are directed The string quartets of Ignaz Pleyel occupy a central indelible traces in many of his instrumental works see at once who was his master. Well, it will be a lucky to be played con sordini, a favourite device of Pleyel place in his prolific musical output. Pleyel’s interest in including the string quartets. day for music if later on Pleyel should be able to and one he would have encountered on numerous the medium is unsurprising given that he studied with We do not know when Pleyel first began to replace Haydn. occasions in the music of his teacher. They are very for several years in the 1770s. What is compose string quartets although at least one early Pleyel composed the majority of his 57 authentic Italianate in flavour with their beautiful first-violin more surprising in a composer routinely dismissed as biographical sketch claims that he took several string quartets in less than a decade. Unsurprisingly, cantilena and one can imagine Luigi Tomasini, the derivative and largely content to ape the style of his manuscript quartets with him to Italy. These works, there is a high degree of stylistic consistency within the leader of Haydn’s orchestra and the man whom he teacher is that Haydn’s influence on his approach to which remain unidentified, may have been composed series and a number of important characteristics can be considered the best interpreter of his quartets, playing quartet composition was rather less marked than one during his years with Haydn or perhaps during his time seen. The most obvious of these is Pleyel’s preference these movements with relish. The most interesting might expect. Pleyel, clearly, was not convinced that as Kapellmeister to Count Erdödy. Whichever the case, for a three-movement rather than a four- movement structurally of the slow movements is that of the sixth Haydn had all the answers and this doubt manifested Pleyel’s earliest quartets were composed during cycle. This represents a radical departure from Haydn’s quartet. The first fifty odd bars of the movement suggest itself very early in his career. Haydn’s so-called ‘Quartettenpause’, the nearly model although three-movement quartets – and variation style and structure as (as do the sectional In 1776 Pleyel completed his studies with Haydn decade-long interval between the composition of the symphonies for that matter – were extremely common headings in the source), but the main theme is not really and enjoyed a great personal triumph with the epochal Op.20 Quartets and the brilliant quartets of during the late eighteenth century. Another interesting varied at all despite its obvious thematic promise. successful staging of his marionette opera Die Fee Op.33. With the completion of the Op.20 Quartets in tendency in Pleyel’s quartets is the reduction in the Instead, the movement unfolds as a series of couplets, Urgèle at the National Theater in Vienna. An 1772 Haydn recognized that he had reached a major length of the development section in sonata-form each focusing on a different instrument, only the first of appointment as Kapellmeister to Count Erdödy soon artistic impasse. He had immeasurably expanded the movements in the later quartets. This contraction and which stays in the tonic. With the reprise of the theme in followed and for a time at least Pleyel seemed set to emotional and intellectual horizons of the medium but the growing emphasis on lyricism rather than thematic between (minus repeats) and the gradually diminishing pursue a similar professional path to Haydn. The he had done so using means that he felt offered limited manipulation represents a conscious rejection of surface rhythms typical of the variation style, the musical resources at his disposal were excellent and potential for further development. His response was to Haydn’s approach to large-scale musical construction movement becomes an extended variation-cum-rondo Erdödy himself was an exceptionally generous and stop composing quartets until he had found a way but one that is also inextricably linked to Pleyel’s structure, a derivative perhaps of Haydn’s characteristic cultivated patron. Nonetheless, much to his surprise, forward. Mozart, who had quickly written a set of six fondness for concertante writing with its demand for alternating or form. Pleyel’s harmonic Pleyel requested extended leave of absence as early as quartets in imitation of Op.20, famously followed suit. simpler musical textures and his cultivation of an language is also striking at times with some lovely 1778 on the grounds that he needed to undertake further Pleyel, then, found himself in an unusual position. He intensely lyrical style. chromatic shadings and also a number of unexpected studies to perfect his art. After prolonged discussion had studied with the most famous composer of quartets The six String Quartets Op.2 were first published in modulations including the juxtaposition of third-related Pleyel was granted leave and headed off to Italy where in Europe and yet was aware, as probably no one else 1784 by the Viennese publisher Graeffer with a keys which was to become one of the most important he spent much of the next few years travelling was, that Haydn himself was unconvinced that his finest dedication to Haydn. Haydn’s opinion of the works is hallmarks of Haydn’s late style. extensively, composing and experiencing Italian works to date represented the best way to compose not known but he must have been impressed by their The ghostly presence of Haydn can be heard musical life at first hand. Pleyel’s Italian experiences string quartets. With no answer forthcoming from rich variety of thematic material and the flexibility and throughout all these splendid works but there are exerted a powerful influence on his evolution as a Haydn (Mozart would not have figured in his thinking imagination with which Pleyel handled his musical passages too that seem to look forward to the quartets of composer. Like Mozart he possessed an uncanny ability at this time) Pleyel turned to other models, notably structures. The first movement of the fifth quartet, for Beethoven. They are a remarkable achievement for a to assimilate stylistic influences and his profound Haydn’s earlier quartets, and in particular the Op.17 example, contains a false reprise that forces substantial young composer and it is one of the cruel quirks of fate understanding of the nuances of the Italian style is Quartets of 1771, the quartets of his first teacher, recomposition in the recapitulation and there are at least that works of such vitality and imagination could be nowhere more evident than in his opera Ifigenia in , and, less obviously, to the two examples of mirror recapitulations where the main forgotten for so long. Aulide composed in 1785 for the Teatro San Carlo in works of Italian composers whose clarity, elegance and theme resurfaces only during the closing stages of the Naples. While one might reasonably expect to see such lyricism he found captivating. Above all, Pleyel looked movement (the first and second movements of the first Allan Badley influences in the realm of opera – for opera so to himself to find a solution, one in which his own dominated Italian musical life that to ignore its styles musical voice would be heard over that of his teacher. Enso¯ String Quartet and conventions would be to court disaster – Pleyel’s That he succeeded in large measure was recognized by Maureen Nelson, violin * Tereza Stanislav, violin • Robert Brophy, viola • Richard Belcher, cello fascination with Italian music ran far deeper and it left Mozart who, on seeing a set of recently published Acclaimed by the press, the Enso¯ String Quartet is quickly becoming one of America’s leading young ensembles. In spring 2003, the quartet was a winner of the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and in the same 8.557497 2 3 8.557497 557497 bk Pleyel2 US 12/29/05 9:17 AM Page 2

quartets [possibly the Op.1 set which was issued in quartet). Significantly, all but one of the works are in Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831) 1784], commended them enthusiastically to his father: three movements: the exception is the fourth quartet in String Quartets, Op. 2 Nos. 4-6 You will find them worth the trouble. They are very E flat which adds a brief 29-bar Minuet between its slow well written and most pleasing to listen to. You will also movement and finale. The slow movements are directed The string quartets of Ignaz Pleyel occupy a central indelible traces in many of his instrumental works see at once who was his master. Well, it will be a lucky to be played con sordini, a favourite device of Pleyel place in his prolific musical output. Pleyel’s interest in including the string quartets. day for music if later on Pleyel should be able to and one he would have encountered on numerous the medium is unsurprising given that he studied with We do not know when Pleyel first began to replace Haydn. occasions in the music of his teacher. They are very Joseph Haydn for several years in the 1770s. What is compose string quartets although at least one early Pleyel composed the majority of his 57 authentic Italianate in flavour with their beautiful first-violin more surprising in a composer routinely dismissed as biographical sketch claims that he took several string quartets in less than a decade. Unsurprisingly, cantilena and one can imagine Luigi Tomasini, the derivative and largely content to ape the style of his manuscript quartets with him to Italy. These works, there is a high degree of stylistic consistency within the leader of Haydn’s orchestra and the man whom he teacher is that Haydn’s influence on his approach to which remain unidentified, may have been composed series and a number of important characteristics can be considered the best interpreter of his quartets, playing quartet composition was rather less marked than one during his years with Haydn or perhaps during his time seen. The most obvious of these is Pleyel’s preference these movements with relish. The most interesting might expect. Pleyel, clearly, was not convinced that as Kapellmeister to Count Erdödy. Whichever the case, for a three-movement rather than a four- movement structurally of the slow movements is that of the sixth Haydn had all the answers and this doubt manifested Pleyel’s earliest quartets were composed during cycle. This represents a radical departure from Haydn’s quartet. The first fifty odd bars of the movement suggest itself very early in his career. Haydn’s so-called ‘Quartettenpause’, the nearly model although three-movement quartets – and variation style and structure as (as do the sectional In 1776 Pleyel completed his studies with Haydn decade-long interval between the composition of the symphonies for that matter – were extremely common headings in the source), but the main theme is not really and enjoyed a great personal triumph with the epochal Op.20 Quartets and the brilliant quartets of during the late eighteenth century. Another interesting varied at all despite its obvious thematic promise. successful staging of his marionette opera Die Fee Op.33. With the completion of the Op.20 Quartets in tendency in Pleyel’s quartets is the reduction in the Instead, the movement unfolds as a series of couplets, Urgèle at the National Theater in Vienna. An 1772 Haydn recognized that he had reached a major length of the development section in sonata-form each focusing on a different instrument, only the first of appointment as Kapellmeister to Count Erdödy soon artistic impasse. He had immeasurably expanded the movements in the later quartets. This contraction and which stays in the tonic. With the reprise of the theme in followed and for a time at least Pleyel seemed set to emotional and intellectual horizons of the medium but the growing emphasis on lyricism rather than thematic between (minus repeats) and the gradually diminishing pursue a similar professional path to Haydn. The he had done so using means that he felt offered limited manipulation represents a conscious rejection of surface rhythms typical of the variation style, the musical resources at his disposal were excellent and potential for further development. His response was to Haydn’s approach to large-scale musical construction movement becomes an extended variation-cum-rondo Erdödy himself was an exceptionally generous and stop composing quartets until he had found a way but one that is also inextricably linked to Pleyel’s structure, a derivative perhaps of Haydn’s characteristic cultivated patron. Nonetheless, much to his surprise, forward. Mozart, who had quickly written a set of six fondness for concertante writing with its demand for alternating or double variation form. Pleyel’s harmonic Pleyel requested extended leave of absence as early as quartets in imitation of Op.20, famously followed suit. simpler musical textures and his cultivation of an language is also striking at times with some lovely 1778 on the grounds that he needed to undertake further Pleyel, then, found himself in an unusual position. He intensely lyrical style. chromatic shadings and also a number of unexpected studies to perfect his art. After prolonged discussion had studied with the most famous composer of quartets The six String Quartets Op.2 were first published in modulations including the juxtaposition of third-related Pleyel was granted leave and headed off to Italy where in Europe and yet was aware, as probably no one else 1784 by the Viennese publisher Graeffer with a keys which was to become one of the most important he spent much of the next few years travelling was, that Haydn himself was unconvinced that his finest dedication to Haydn. Haydn’s opinion of the works is hallmarks of Haydn’s late style. extensively, composing and experiencing Italian works to date represented the best way to compose not known but he must have been impressed by their The ghostly presence of Haydn can be heard musical life at first hand. Pleyel’s Italian experiences string quartets. With no answer forthcoming from rich variety of thematic material and the flexibility and throughout all these splendid works but there are exerted a powerful influence on his evolution as a Haydn (Mozart would not have figured in his thinking imagination with which Pleyel handled his musical passages too that seem to look forward to the quartets of composer. Like Mozart he possessed an uncanny ability at this time) Pleyel turned to other models, notably structures. The first movement of the fifth quartet, for Beethoven. They are a remarkable achievement for a to assimilate stylistic influences and his profound Haydn’s earlier quartets, and in particular the Op.17 example, contains a false reprise that forces substantial young composer and it is one of the cruel quirks of fate understanding of the nuances of the Italian style is Quartets of 1771, the quartets of his first teacher, recomposition in the recapitulation and there are at least that works of such vitality and imagination could be nowhere more evident than in his opera Ifigenia in Johann Baptist Wanhal, and, less obviously, to the two examples of mirror recapitulations where the main forgotten for so long. Aulide composed in 1785 for the Teatro San Carlo in works of Italian composers whose clarity, elegance and theme resurfaces only during the closing stages of the Naples. While one might reasonably expect to see such lyricism he found captivating. Above all, Pleyel looked movement (the first and second movements of the first Allan Badley influences in the realm of opera – for opera so to himself to find a solution, one in which his own dominated Italian musical life that to ignore its styles musical voice would be heard over that of his teacher. Enso¯ String Quartet and conventions would be to court disaster – Pleyel’s That he succeeded in large measure was recognized by Maureen Nelson, violin * Tereza Stanislav, violin • Robert Brophy, viola • Richard Belcher, cello fascination with Italian music ran far deeper and it left Mozart who, on seeing a set of recently published Acclaimed by the press, the Enso¯ String Quartet is quickly becoming one of America’s leading young ensembles. In spring 2003, the quartet was a winner of the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and in the same 8.557497 2 3 8.557497 557497 bk Pleyel2 US 12/29/05 9:17 AM Page 4

year also took top prizes at Chamber Music Yellow Springs (OH) Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. In September 2004, the quartet was awarded second prize and the Pièce de concert prize at the Eighth Banff International String Quartet Competition, and the following month, the ensemble was featured in a Ignaz national broadcast of Minnesota Public Radio’s long-running programme Saint Paul Sunday. Summer 2005 brought concerts at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium and at the Honest Brook, Mohawk Trail, and Cooperstown Chamber Music Festivals, to be followed by concerts in New York at Merkin Concert Hall and a PLEYEL Lincoln Center début. The ensemble’s recording of the six string quartets, Op. 2, of Ignaz Pleyel, marks the quartet’s recording début and a first recording that, in two releases, includes the complete set of quartets. The Enso¯ String Quartet has performed at festivals throughout the United States and abroad since its inception in 1999, including featured appearances at such music festivals as La Jolla SummerFest, Chautauqua Institution, Green String Quartets, Op. 2 Nos. 4-6 Lake Festival (WI), and the Great Lakes Music Festival. Internationally, the quartet has performed for the Asociación Nacional de Conciertos in Panama, the Tuckamore Festival in St John’s, Newfoundland, toured Costa Rica as guest artists in the Twelfth International Costa Rica Music Festival, and were selected for a two-week Enso¯ Quartet residency at France’s Académie européenne de musique d’Aix-en-Provence. For two years the quartet was graduate Quartet-in-Residence at Rice University, followed by appointment as Guest Quartet-in-Residence, in addition to residencies at Northern Illinois University and at the Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme at Aldeburgh. The Enso¯ String Quartet draws together four young musicians from around the world. Its members hold degrees from the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, University of Indiana, Royal Northern College of Music (UK) and the University of Canterbury (New Zealand). The members of the ensemble met while pursuing graduate degrees at Yale University, where they later worked with the Tokyo String Quartet. Other prominent musicians with whom the group has worked include members of the Cleveland, Alban Berg, and Takács quartets, Joseph Silverstein, and composer Joan Tower. The quartet’s performances have been broadcast on PBS, Chicago’s WFMT, Wisconsin Public Radio and Canada’s CBC radio. The ensemble’s name, enso¯, is derived from the Japanese zen painting of the circle which represents many things; perfection and imperfection, the moment of chaos that is creation, the emptiness of the void, the endless circle of life, and the fullness of the spirit.

Scores and parts for the works featured on this recording are available from: ARTARIA EDITIONS LTD PO Box 9836 Te Aro Wellington, NEW ZEALAND http://www.artaria.com The sources upon which the editions used in this recording have been made are: String Quartet in E flat major, Op. 2 No. 4 Edited by Dianne James - Artaria Editions AE235 Graeffer print [1784]:Vienna, Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde String Quartet in B flat major, Op. 2 No. 5 Edited by Dianne James - Artaria Editions AE236 Graeffer print [1784]:Vienna, Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde String Quartet in D major, Op.2 No.6 Edited by Dianne James - Artaria Editions AE248 Graeffer print [1784]:Vienna, Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde

8.557497 4 CMYK NAXOS NAXOS When Mozart encountered a newly-published set of Pleyel’s string quartets in 1784 he commended them enthusiastically to his father, writing: ‘You will find them worth the trouble. They are very well written and most pleasing to listen to. You will also see at once who was his master. Well, it will be a lucky day for music if later on Pleyel should be able to replace Haydn.’ Mozart might have been writing of the Op. 2 Quartets, which were also published that year, with DDD PLEYEL: a dedication to Haydn, for they are remarkable works, rich in melodic invention and unfailingly PLEYEL: ingenious in their technical resourcefulness. (Quartets Nos. 1-3 are available on Naxos 8.557496.) 8.557497 Ignaz Playing Time PLEYEL 56:38 String Quartets, Op. 2 Nos. 4-6 (1757-1831) String Quartets, Op. 2 Nos. 4-6 String Quartet in E flat major, Op. 2 No. 4 18:42 1 Allegro 7:00 2 Adagio 5:00 3 Tempo di Minuetto 1:23 4 Finale: Allegro assai 5:18 String Quartet in B flat major, Op. 2 No. 5 18:06 5 Allegro 9:31 Made in USA Booklet notes in English 6 Andante cantabile 4:23 Naxos Rights International Ltd. 7 Rondo: Grazioso 4:11 &

String Quartet in D major, Op. 2 No. 6 19:51 2006 8 Allegro 10:33 9 Allegretto 6:59 0 Presto 2:18 Enso¯ Quartet Maureen Nelson, Violin • Tereza Stanislav, Violin Robert Brophy, Viola • Richard Belcher, Cello Recorded at the Holy Martyrs Church, Bradford, Ontario, Canada,

8.557497 31st January-4th February 2004 8.557497 Producers: Norbert Kraft and Bonnie Silver • Engineer & Editor: Norbert Kraft Publisher: Artaria Editions • Booklet Notes: Allan Badley Cover Photo: View of the cascade at Erlaw, Vienna from ‘Pleasure Gardens in and around Vienna’, engraved by Johann Ziegler (c.1750-c.1812), c.1790 (coloured engraving), after Laurenz Janscha (1749-1812) [Bridgeman Art Library / Private Collection]