Rediscovered and now in a World Premiere Recording: Jan Ladislav Dussek:
Streichquartette op. 60 Strin Quartet in G op. 60 No 1
Strin Quartet in B flat op. 60 No 2
String Quartet in E flat op. 60 No 3 Johannes Gebauer, Violin I
Karen Walthinsen, Violin II
Irina Alexandrowna, Viola
Martin Burkhardt, Violoncello Order from Amazon UK or Amazon US. For 200 years they remained untouched in European libraries. Rediscovered by the Camesina Quartet, the first recording of the three string quartets of Jan Ladislav Dussek is available on the Musikmanufaktur Berlin label. Dussek composed the quartets in 1806 shortly before his friend and employee Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia was killed in the battle of Saalfeld. "I have lately composed three Quartettos for Two Violins, Tenor, and Violoncello, and confess to You that I think this work above all that I have composed, they are neither in the Stile of Mozart, or Haydn, nor that of Pleyel, they are in the Stile of Dussek, and I hope will make some noise in the Musical World. I wish them to be dedicated to his Royal Highness the Prince Louis of Prussia, with whom I am at the moment at the army against the French," Dussek wrote only days before the Prince's death. The quartets are indeed written in Dussek's very own style, somewhere between the Classical and the Romantic aesthetics, already foreshadowing the roots of the Berlin Romanticism of Mendelssohn and exhibiting a rich harmonic language pointing towards Schumann and Brahms. The recording was met with the greatest praise from the press. Read what the press had to say here (in German). |
