Concertzender Live: Quatuor Diotima

In November last year the French Quatuor Diotima gave a series of four concerts in the Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ over a period of three days, each concert containing a work by Schönberg, Beethoven and Boulez. The Concertzender recorded three of the four concerts.

In the first place this series was a tribute to the Kolisch Quartet, an Austrian quartet who played from the 20's to the 40's. They played not only the standard string quartet repertoire but much contemporary music including the premières of the quartets by Berg, Schönberg and Bartók.

In 1936 Schönberg was in America where he composed his Fourth string quartet. The Kolisch quartet decided to baptise this in Los Angeles and to place this première in a series of four concerts each containing a quartet by Schönberg. Schönbergs four filled one half, the other half was filled by a late Beethoven quartet (the quartet opus 135 wasn't played and the Grote fuga opus 133 was played as an add-on to the quartet opus 130).

The combination Beethoven-Schönberg was quite normal for the Kolisch quartet ; the composers of the ‘First Viennese School’ were their normal fare. In the period that the Kolisch quartet gave the four concerts (December 1936-January 1937) they also made the four recordings which were released at the end of the 40's on LP and later as CDs.

By combining Schönberg four times with Beethoven the Kolisch quartet wanted to emphasise the similarities between the two, something with which Schönberg would have strongly agreed.

By repeating the series the Quatuor Diotima wished to do more than simply repeat the Kolisch quartet series. They wanted to combine the two old masters with another who was equally groundbreaking - hence Pierre Boulez.

Broadcast

The Concertzender recorded three of the four concerts. They will be broacast with live commentary by Emanuel Overbeeke and presented by Pauline Verburg.

Concertzender Live: Monday 15, 22 and 29 January, 20:00 to 22:00 CET.