Schumann String Quartets – Vertavo

The ardour of invention.

The renowned Vertavo String Quartet performs two of Schumann´s string quartets on their second album. Written with great fluency in the space of six weeks (2 June-22 July 1842), Schumann´s three String Quartets, destined to remain his only works in the genre. Schumann´s First (“Spring”) Symphony had been premiered the previous year, but he had as yet no reputation at all in the sphere of chamber music. Yet though a relative novice in the form, Schumann had produced an important trilogy destined to exercise influence over later quartet-composers. His quartets are all indebted to the formal and textual clarity of Haydn, Mozart and early Beethoven, but his polyphonic style relies, however, not only on Classical precedent but also on his studies of Bach. Nevertheless, there is nowhere in these quartets where one would be likely to mistake their author, such is the ardour of invention and the distinctiveness and fantasy of their melodic language. While the first quartet is probably the most frequently performed, the other two – performed by the Vertavo String Quartet – are equally fascinating and rewarding.

With extensive touring all over the world behind them and several prizes won, the Vertavo String Quartet has since their founding in 1984 enjoyed the reputation of being one of Europe´s finest and most outstanding string quartets. Their first album containing string quartets of the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, released in 1995, won the Norwegian Grammy Award and was generally received to great critical acclaim, as evident in its many positive reviews, such as in The Strad: “It was spellbinding, spectacular quartet playing.”