On the 200th birthday of Joachim Raff, who is today almost completely forgotten, the Leipzig String Quartet present world premiere recordings of his chamber works.
On the face of it, the string octet is based on the classical four movement form. It goes without saying that this would have offended the "New German Composers". Harmonically, however, Raff is completely with the modernizers around Wagner and Liszt - already the beginning of the first movement shows bold turns, and the extended slow movement can't get out of the rapturous indulgence...
For the Fantasy, of which there was originally a version for two pianos, the Leipzigers can be assured of Rudolph Meister's participation. The accomplished pianist demonstrates complete virtuosity at the beginning, whose rushing cascades accompany the palatable string singing. In the Larghetto section, the quartet and piano then find an extremely harmonious cooperation, and in a finely crafted play with the expectations of the audience, the quintet storms to a furious conclusion.
The two encores are a real rarity: Under the name of Joseph Kffner, an immensely popular arranger at the time, though already deceased, Schott-Verlag for a short time published arrangements of popular operas from Raff's hand. Primarius Stefan Arzberger and Rudolph Meister can clearly hear the pleasure in Verdi's evergreens "Il Trovatore" and "Rigoletto" - bel canto melting at its best!
Since its founding two decades ago, the Leipzig String Quartet has garnered the attention of international critics and audiences with its distinctive dark timbre and meticulously sculpted interpretations of a widely varied repertoire.
Formed originally by principals of the renowned Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Quartet continues to uphold the principles of sound and integrity ascribed to this great orchestra. Called 'one of the towering and most versatile quartets of our time' by the Neue Zuercher Zeitung and lauded by The New York Times for presenting 'rich, mellow, unadulterated beauty' and a true 'Leipzig sound', the Quartet is considered to be one of the world's great chamber music ensembles.
Having released over one hundred recordings of repertoire spanning from Mozart to Cage, the Quartet has received numerous recognitions for these projects. Strings magazine proclaimed the Quartet's recordings of the complete string quartet works of Franz Schubert to be 'of the highest order, the interpretations bracing and intense, and the recordings themselves ideal in clarity, richness of sound, and naturalness of acoustics'. In 2018, the Leipzig String Quartet's recording of the entire Mozart string quartets was, in a 'blind contest' by French magazine 'Classica' chosen as the best one out of ten competing releases of the last five decades. Consequently, the Quartet has won prizes by the German Record Reviewers and both the ECHO and Diapason d'Or awards.
