Скачать или смотреть Mozart: Quartet in E-flat major, K. 428

Mozart: Quartet in E-flat major, K. 428

Allegro non troppo
Andante con moto (7:34)
Menuetto: Allegro (13:49)
Allegro vivace (19:52)


VERMEER QUARTET
Shmuel Ashkenasi, 1st violin
Mathias Tacke, 2nd violin
Richard Young, viola
Marc Johnson, cello


From a pre-concert talk by Marc Johnson and Richard Young…

QUESTION: Is it an advantage for all four members of a string quartet to play instruments by the same maker, as some groups do?

MARC: That would depend on the instruments themselves since there can be such a wide variety among those made by the same maker. It also depends on how they’re set up – the placement and tightness of the sound post, the precise location of the bridge, the type of strings, etc.

RICHARD: Since instruments by Stradivari, Amati, Guarneri and the other great makers from Cremona have similar qualities, it can be easier to achieve a perfect blend if all four instruments are Cremonese. However there are times, even in the same piece, when you want your sound to stand apart from the other voices. And simply playing louder is not always the answer. So we prefer instruments that can contribute to a homogenized sonority, but can also sound distinctively different when the music requires that.

QUESTION: Tell us about the particular instruments in the Vermeer Quartet.

MARC: Well, that has changed considerably over the years. When I first joined the quartet in the mid-1970s, Shmuel had an outstanding Guarneri del Gesu. But it was temperamental and there were issues with the response. He then played a Vuillaume for a short time before settling on his Nicolo Bergonzi, ca. 1780. In my case, I started out with a Vuillaume cello, then switched to an Amati which was lovely but somewhat muffled. After that I owned a Tecchler for many years before trading it for my present cello, which is actually a composite. Most of it was made by Francesco Stradivari around 1720. But the top was by J. B. Guadagnini, probably because the original top was damaged along the way.

RICHARD: Our original second violinist, Pierre Menard, had a fabulous Ruggeri. But then when Mathias joined us, he didn’t have a first-rate fiddle. So during his first year he used my 1772 J. B. Guadagnini before purchasing his own violin, a Storioni made in 1788. In my case, I didn’t own a viola when I joined the Vermeer because I’d always been strictly a violinist. Therefore during my first few years in the Vermeer, I played one instrument after another – some old, some new, some very good, others not so good. Finally in 1991 I found my wonderful Peregrino di Zanetto, made in Brescia around 1560. Think about it… that’s a half century before it was proven that the earth rotates around the sun instead of the other way around!