Leipziger Streichquartett

The Leipziger Streichquartett, established in 1988 by the directors of the famous Gewandhausorchester, decided to focus entirely on chamber music in 1993. Since then, they are ranked among the best, of which their much-lauded recordings of the complete Schubert quartets bear witness. In 1875, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) remarked about his Third Quartet in a letter to friend: "a wholly useless and lightweight piece to avoid the confrontation with the symphony"... It may be a more light-hearted work than the two preceding quartets, more in the spirit of Haydn than that of Beethoven, but at every performance, it reverberates as a euphoric masterwork. Just as Brahms had his problems with the figure of Beethoven, the music of Zemlinsky (1871-1942) did not emerge from under the shadows of Mahler and Schönberg, until long after his death. Quite surprising actually, because his string quartets for instance, reveal a many-facetted personality. He knew how to combine Schubert's lyricism with attainments of the Second Vienna School. His 'Zwei Sätze' date from 1927, just as the Third Quartet of his brother-in-law, Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951). With this quartet, Schönberg marks a new period in his oeuvre: that of the fully-fledged serial dodecaphonic notation.