Jerusalem Quartet

Concert recorded by France Musique and soon to be broadcast in Le Concert de 20h

Alexander Pavlovsky, violin
Sergei Bresler, violin
Ori Kam, viola
Kyril Zlotnikov, cello

With sixteen recordings on Harmonia Mundi and numerous critical acclaim, the Jerusalem Quartet can look back on a long and successful career since its foundation in 1993. For this concert event, they have chosen three landmark works from the great history of the string quartet repertoire. First of all, Mozart’s K. 575, commissioned by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II, an excellent cellist. Mozart was faced with the challenge of making a particular instrument shine in the most egalitarian genre in music. The result is what has been called a ‘concertante quartet’ for cello, with a triumphant finale. Time jumps to the turmoil of the 1940s in the USSR. Prokofiev was evacuated to Nalchik, on the northern slopes of the Caucasus. There he discovered Kabardic folklore and decided to integrate it into his second quartet. He thus confronted classical form and traditional music, notably with the imitation of the kemange, a Caucasian instrument, in the central part. Inspiration sometimes comes when it is not expected, and Brahms is said to have destroyed some twenty attempts before being satisfied with his first quartet. Centred on a fundamental idea stated from the very first bars, it is treated in the manner of a cycle crossed by anxieties, repeating the same melodic idea over and over again. Highly contrapuntal, with concentrated writing, it is one of the most emblematic works of the string quartet as pure music.

Program: