Arriaga : String Quartet no 3 in E flat – Allegro

Quatuor Modigliani

From Quatuor Modigliani – Intuition
Arriaga / Mozart / Schubert

Released by Harmonia Mundi

Arriaga : String Quartet no 3 in E flat – Allegro


More or less off the beaten track of what is known as the ‘mainstream repertoire’, frequently recorded and often played in concert, there exist many magnificent works which the public is only rarely given an opportunity of hearing.
Before entering on the tenth year of existence of our quartet, we felt the urge to share with you our encounter with three gems that come straight from the heart and the imagination of three teenage composers.
The dazzling inspiration of the young Mozart, who wrote free of all constraint, out of sheer pleasure in exploring the genre; the easy fluency of Schubert, who needed just a few days to compose this quartet intended for no more exalted purpose than performance in his family parlour; and the already eminently Romantic élan of Arriaga, whom only illness robbed of the glorious destiny his contemporaries predicted for him: instinct played a preponderant role in the creation of each of these pieces.
And what an inspiring moment it was, in the career of our still youthful quartet, when all four of us realised, in playing through these works, that the sincerest tribute we could pay their three marvellous composers would be to allow ourselves to be guided by the sublime intuition they possessed at this moment in their lives. To love their work as one loves a dear friend, not for what they will be or might have been, but quite simply for what they are when one meets them.
The Modigliani Quartet

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