Zehetmair Quartet | Anu Komsi

Lucerne Festival
Lucerne
Switzerland
http://e.lucernefestival.ch

Zehetmair Quartet: Thomas Zehetmair violin | Kuba Jakowicz violin | Ruth Killius viola | Christian Elliott violoncello | Anu Komsi soprano

Heinz Holliger enjoys a close artistic friendship with Thomas Zehetmair, for whom he wrote his violin concerto titled Hommage à Louis Soutter. The composer’s Second String Quartet was likewise premiered by Zehetmair and his formidable quartet. The richly expressive sound world that Holliger has created in this work gives the players almost no time to breathe and explores the limits of this genre of “four reasonable people in conversation,” as Goethe once described the string quartet. Claude Debussy took a new look at this long-standing genre in his only string quartet, which is written not for a single, homogeneous ensemble but for four individuals and which disturbed his contemporaries with its unprecedented harmonies and shimmering timbres. We are excitedly looking forward to discovering the new paths Heinz Holliger will forge in his latest work, based on poems by Nikolaus Lenau!

Heinz Holliger : String Quartet no. 2
Claude Debussy : String Quartet in G minor
Heinz Holliger : Increschantüm. Poems by Luisa Famos (1930–1974) for soprano