Premiere Recording: Dussek String Quartets

For 200 years they remained untouched in European libraries. Rediscovered by the Camesina Quartet, the first recording of the three string quartets of Jan Ladislav Dussek will soon appear on the Musikmanufaktur Berlin label. Dussek composed the quartets in 1806 shortly before his friend and employee Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia was killed in the battle of Saalfeld. "I have lately composed three Quartettos for Two Violins, Tenor, and Violoncello, and confess to You that I think this work above all that I have composed, they are neither in the Stile of Mozart, or Haydn, nor that of Pleyel, they are in the Stile of Dussek, and I hope will make some noise in the Musical World. I wish them to be dedicated to his Royal Highness the Prince Louis of Prussia, with whom I am at the moment at the army against the French," Dussek wrote only days before the Prince's death. The quartets are indeed written in Dussek's very own style, somewhere between the classical and the romantic aesthetics, already foreshadowing the roots of the Berlin Romanticism of Mendelssohn and exhibiting a rich harmonic language pointing towards Schumann and Brahms. The quartets are likely to be an important addition to the string quartet repertoire. Preceding the recording, the Camesina Quartet laboriously compared the existing sources to compile an accurate text of the score. The CD containing the three quartets, Op. 60, will be released in February 2009 and distributed by JA KLA/AL!VE AG.

Jan Ladislav Dussek
3 String Quartets Op. 60
Camesina Quartet
on period instruments

Johannes Gebauer & Karen Walthinsen, Violins
Irina Alexandrowna, Viola Martin Burkhardt, Violoncello

Label: Musikmanufaktur Berlin
www.musikmanufaktur.com

The Camesina Quartet
String Quartet with Period Instruments

When the Camesina String Quartet formed in 2007, one of its mutual concerns was to once again dare a little more purism. While other similar ensembles have long returned to modern playing techniques and accessories, and while the label "historical performance practice" is mostly limited to the use of gut strings, the Camesina String Quartet tries to approach historical sound, not only through the study and application of sources, but also through a constant questioning and pioneering spirit, never succumbing to a mere imitation of currently prevailing taste.

Already in its first year, the Camesina Quartet received and accepted an invitation to tour the Czech Republic where its performances included a celebrated appearance at the Haydn Festival in Lukavice/Pilsen.

The name Camesina Quartet refers to the Camesina House where W. A. Mozart resided from 1784 until 1787 and where he played the six string quartets dedicated to Joseph Haydn for the first time in the presence of his elder friend. It was in this apartment where the famous quartet parties took place with Joseph Haydn (first violin), Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (second violin), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (viola) and Jan Vanhal (violoncello) playing string quartets together. The house is named after the stucco plasterer Alberto Camesina, who owned the house for a time, and who decorated it with a Baroque stucco ceiling. It was under this ceiling that Mozart probably composed some of his greatest music, including the six string quartets dedicated to Joseph Haydn.