Successful Debut in Graz: Daedalus Quartet
Translated:
The first encore was dedicated to Barack Obama
The subtitles "Intimate Letters" and "Voces Intimae" betray what content Leos Janacek and Jean Sibelius packed into their string quartets. In its successful debut at the Graz Music Society (Musikverein) the Daedalus Quartet played Josef Haydn's last completed string quartet as though it were a personal confession. With technical sovereignty, clear tone, relaxed tempos, perfect ensemble playing, and meticulous adherence to the text the US ensemble, created in the summer of 2000, made clear with what supple superiority the composer handles formal rules in order to place in the foreground the expression of feeling.
"Intimate Letters" - late works dominated this evening: Janacek wrote his "Intimate Letters" when he was 70. They speak of his passion for a woman 38 years his junior. His erotic longings were expressed by the guests with a perfect balance between emphasis and relaxation as expressively emotional studies. No less intensive was their survey of the painfully riven, fissured, fragmented D minor Quartet by Sibelius.
For Barack Obama - Jessica Thompson (viola) whose colleagues have Korean and Indian roots, delighted everyone when she dedicated the first of the two encores to the new US president Barack Obama.