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Tchaikovsky: Quartet Op. 22 – Sextet ‘Souvenir de Florence’
The internationally celebrated Vermeer Quartet, known for its extensive, major-label recordings of standard repertoire, has turned to its hometown record label, Chicago’s Cedille Records, for a program of important yet surprisingly neglected Tchaikovsky works.
The disc offers Tchaikovsky’s profoundly moving Quartet No. 2, available on CD for the first time outside a multi-disc set, and the eloquent Souvenir de Florence, performed in its less-often recorded — but more intimate and effective — original version for string sextet.
The Vermeer’s members are Shmuel Ashkenasi, violin; Mathias Tacke, violin; Richard Young, viola and Marc Johnson, cello. For the sextet, they’re joined by Rami Solomonow, principal violist of the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra, and John Sharp, principal cellist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
The quartet, formed in 1969 at the Marlboro Festival, has since performed at virtually all the world’s most prestigious festival and in every major city in North America and Europe. The Vermeer is “acclaimed for solid performances of repertory of all period,” notes the New Grove Dictionary of American Music.
Program Notes
Download Album BookletTchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 2 and "Souvenir de Florence" for String Sextet
Notes by Huw Edwards
Although Tchaikovsky’s orchestral works are much performed and recorded, his chamber and solo piano music remain comparatively obscure. Tchaikovsky’s three string quartets are all relatively early works stemming from a transitional period in his turbulent life. The Second Quartet, composed between December 1873 and January 1874, has become the Cinderella of the three. A month after its completion, the quartet was performed privately at the apartment of pianist and pedagogue Nicolai Rubinstein. The work was well received by all present except for the host’s brother, composer and pianist Anton Rubinstein. As Tchaikovsky’s friend Nicolai Kashkin reported: “All the while the music continued, Anton Grigoryevich listened with a dark, dissatisfied air, and soon as it was over, said with his usual ruthless candor, that this was not at all in the chamber style, and that he did not understand the composition at all. All the other listeners were, on the contrary, in ecstasy.” The Second Quartet’s public premiere the following month at the Imperial Music Society was an unqualified success, with even the usually critical composer César Cui hailing the work as Tchaikovsky’s “most distinctive and original to date.”
Album Details
Total Time: 73:44
Recorded: May & October, 1993 at the Great Hall, First United Methodist Church, Evanston, Illinois
Producer: James Ginsburg
Engineer: Bill Maylone
Design: Cheryl A Boncuore
Notes: Huw Edwards
© 1994 Cedille Records/Cedille Chicago