Mozart’s masterful String Quartet in E-flat Major is one of the six “Haydn” quartets dedicated to his beloved mentor, written between late 1782 and early 1785. The music looks both backward and forward, paying homage to Haydn’s Classical poise and wit even as it anticipates the more overtly dramatic string quartets of Beethoven and Schubert.
Composed in 1910 but not performed in public until 1923, Berg’s first quartet was a turning point in his career. Although he acknowledged how much he had learned from his teacher, Arnold Schoenberg, he credited his wife as the primary inspiration for his Op. 3 String Quartet. In a letter Berg wrote to her after a performance of the work in Salzburg in 1923, he declared that it was she “to whom the quartet belongs and who brought it into being.”
In the mid-1820s, as illness and financial trouble started to interfere in his life, Schubert found compositional motivation in the idea of writing a “grand symphony” on the scale of Beethoven’s Ninth. Although that ambitious project never came to fruition, his last three quartets—the G-Major Quartet of 1826 and the quartets in A minor (“Rosamunde”) and D minor (“Death and the Maiden”), both written in 1824—were clearly conceived on a symphonic scale.
The Tetzlaff Quartet is one of today’s leading string quartets. It was formed in 1994 by Christian Tetzlaff, Elisabeth Kufferath, Hanna Weinmeister, and Tanja Tetzlaff, who take time from their successful individual careers to tour as an ensemble several times each season, performing concerts for which they have received great critical acclaim.
Highlights of the quartet’s 2017–2018 season include its fourth North American tour, with performances on the West Coast at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts; University of California, Berkeley; and Green Music Center in Sonoma. The tour will also include concerts at the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Cincinnati, Spivey Hall in greater Atlanta, and Shriver Hall in Baltimore. In Europe, the quartet appears in London, Cologne, Hamburg, and Hannover. Additional recent European engagements include performances at Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Paris’s Auditorium du Louvre, Brussels’s BOZAR, Vienna’s Musikverein, Munich’s Herkulessaal, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall.
The quartet’s first recording, featuring music by Schoenberg and Sibelius, was released by the CAvi-music label in 2010. Subsequent recordings include Berg’s Lyric Suite and Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 13, in 2014, and, most recently, a program of Schubert and Haydn quartets, released this year on the Ondine label.
Christian Tetzlaff is a regular guest with the world’s leading orchestras and festivals. He also enjoys collaborations with the most distinguished chamber musicians, including recital partners Leif Ove Andsnes and Lars Vogt. He plays a violin by German violinmaker Peter Greiner.
Elisabeth Kufferath performs at international music festivals, including Lucerne, Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau, Ravinia, and Aspen. Her regular chamber music partners include Lars Vogt, Antje Weithaas, Isabelle Faust, and Jens Peter Maintz. Ms. Kufferath is professor of violin at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover. She plays a violin by Peter Greiner.
Currently first concertmaster of the Zürich Opera House, Hanna Weinmeister has collaborated with distinguished artists, including Leonidas Kavakos, Heinz Holliger, Gidon Kremer, and Benjamin Schmid. She plays a viola by Peter Greiner.
Tanja Tetzlaff has appeared with many of Europe’s major international orchestras under conductors such as Daniel Harding, Lorin Maazel, and Paavo Järvi. She is especially dedicated to chamber music and regularly performs with Lars Vogt, Martin Fröst, and Carolin Widmann. She plays a 1776 cello by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini.
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