© Lyodoh Kaneko

It's almost impossible to imagine a more intense start to a concert series: Béla Bartók's six quartets in two sessions. Rooted in the finest tradition of the genre, that which began with Haydn and continued with Mozart and especially Beethoven, Bartók's quartets constitute one of the great pinnacles of chamber music history. The Diotima Quartet is performed first, the odd-numbered quartets, which highlights their contrasts, since the 1 º (1908-09), in three movements, is built from classical formal principles and the still romantic sound of the composer's early period; the 3 º (1927) is very original in form (a movement in four sections), with an expressiveness close to that of Viennese Expressionism; the 5 º (1934), in five movements, is cyclical in nature and opposes a certain sweetness to the violence of the previous one.

The Diotima Quartet was founded in 1996 by graduates of the Paris Conservatory. Its name evokes a dual musical identity: Diotima is also an allegory of German Romanticism (Friedrich Hölderlin uses this name for the love of his life in his novel). Hyperion) and a standard-bearer of the music of our time, alluding to Luigi Nono and his work Fragmente-Stille, an DiotimaThe Quartet has collaborated with some of the greatest composers of the second half of the 20th century, such as Pierre Boulez and Helmut Lachenmann. It also undertakes numerous commissions and receives new works from Toshio Hosokawa, Miroslav Srnka, Alberto Posadas, Mauro Lanza, Gérard Pesson, Rebecca Saunders, Misato Mochizuki, and Tristan Murail. From its perspective on contemporary music, Diotima offers a fresh take on the great works of the 19th and 20th centuries by composers such as Beethoven, Schubert, the Viennese Triad (Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern), as well as Janáček, Debussy, Ravel, and Bartók.

Yun-Peng Zhao, fiddle             

Léo Marillier, fiddle      

Franck Chevalier, viola             

Pierre Morletcello        

program:

Béla Bartók (1881-1945)

Complete Quartets I

String Quartet No. 1, Op. 7, Sz 40

Quartet No. 3 Sz 85

Quartet No. 5 Sz 102

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