QUINTESSENTIAL

Classical and Modern Music

Format: Digitalno + CD

Code: 117909

EAN: 3838898117909

In cooperation with Radio Slovenia – ARS Programme, Slovenian Ministry of Culture and Amadeus Chamber Music Society ZKP RTV Slovenija is releasing the album from Carpe Artem Collective entitled Quintessential. On it you will find piano quintets by Johannes Brahms and Dmitri Shostakovich. The musicians of the quintet have been playing together since their student years. Due to the geographical distance that separates them – Lana Trotovšek is based in London, Miha Haas in Ljubljana, Nejc Mikolič in Klagenfurt, and Miladin Batalović and Nikolaj Sajko in Maribor – they have been meeting again and again over the last ten years at the Carpe Artem chamber concert series, which is held at the Kazina Hall of the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor under the programme direction of Nikolaj Sajko. As well as performing many concerts as a quintet, they have also collaborated with other musicians at the concert series.

The protracted genesis of the only piano quintet by Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) began in 1861, when it was initially conceived as a string quintet with two cellos. After destroying the first version, Brahms made a second attempt in the form of a sonata for two pianos, but this failed to impress him either. It was only the critical remarks of Clara Schumann, Joseph Joachim and Hermann Levi that encouraged him to rework the composition as a piano quintet. When the completed quintet was finally published in 1865, Joachim and Levi went as far as to label it the best chamber work since Schubert’s death. Brahms constantly modifies the complex thematic material from the opening according to the principle of variation, exploiting the expansiveness of Romantic pianism with a contrapuntal intertwining of the strings that evokes a melancholy mood – but not for long. The second movement, with its grace and its syncopated rhythms, creates an evocative contrast in the arc of its tripartite song form. In addition to euphoric exclamations, some dance elements are heard, gently rounded off by the characteristic softness of minor thirds. The reflective and at times grotesque third movement gives the quintet a new march impetus with the syncopated movement in the lower layers, which grow into a probing fugue. The lyrical trio that follows serves to emphasise the temperament, which is reminiscent of Schumann’s idiom. The finale begins in a similar manner with the mirroring of semitones across octaves, as in Mozart’s “Dissonant” quartet, No. 19, or Beethoven’s third string quartet “Razumovsky”. In the faster section, a theme consisting of repeated three-note cells appears in the cello. Following the rondo principle, the movement grows into several episodes and the internal tensions are only resolved in the coda, which leads to a breathtaking triumph.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) is regarded as one of the most important Russian composers of the stylistically turbulent twentieth century. Despite his pronounced tendencies towards musical modernism and his expanded harmonic constellations, Shostakovich was an extremely sensitive artist who primarily created in traditional musical forms. He takes his place in the history of music with his monumental cycle of fifteen symphonies and as many string quartets. In the context of Shostakovich’s extensive oeuvre, the synthesis of traditional form and new musical expression is convincingly realised in the Piano Quintet in G minor from 1940. The initiative for the creation of this five-movement work came from the performers themselves, the Beethoven Quartet of Moscow, who had followed the composer’s maturation and were impressed by his first string quartet. They therefore asked Shostakovich to write a work in which he could present himself as a pianist alongside the quartet. The result of this invitation was an unexpected success (the audience demanded a repetition of the third movement and the finale), which the composer also felt in material terms: the composition was completed in the summer of 1940, just months before the great German offensive on Russian territory, and its extremely successful premiere at the Moscow Academy of Music on 23 November 1940 also brought Shostakovich the Stalin Prize and one hundred thousand roubles, which is still considered to be the highest honorarium ever paid for a chamber work.

- Benjamin Virc

Carpe Artem Collective biographies 

Violinist Lana Trotovšek is a recipient of the 2021 Prešeren Fund Prize of the Republic of Slovenia, which she received for her achievements over the past three years. Since her debut with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra under Valery Gergiev in 2012, she has appeared with some of the world’s finest orchestras, including the Moscow Soloists, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and many others. As a soloist, she has also collaborated with Tan Dun, Gianandrea Noseda, Rafael Payare, Sergey Krylov, Juri Bashmet and actor John Malkovich. A recent concert in Washington was described as “radiant” by the Washington Post, and a recital at the Wigmore Hall was labelled “remarkable” by Strad magazine. She has released live performances of the complete Beethoven violin sonatas with pianist Maria Canyigueral on the recording label ZKP RTV Slovenia. Lana Trotovšek currently lives in London and is a violin professor at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. She plays a 1750 Pietro Antonio dalla Costa violin.

Miha Haas is a pianist, concert performer and professor of piano and chamber music, as well as a recording artist and a researcher actively involved in the fields of acoustics and the historic circumstances of performance practice. He is the vice-president of the European Piano Teachers Association Slovenia, a project leader of its annual conference and an editorial board member the professional piano periodical Virkla. Miha Haas is currently an associate professor at the Ljubljana Academy of Music.

Violinist Miladin Batalović graduated from the Music School in Kragujevac and the Kornelija Stanković Music High School in Belgrade, where he received an award for outstanding achievements. He studied in Stuttgart with Gerhard Voss and Antonio Spiller, and earned a master’s degree in contemporary music with Joachim Schall. At the same time, he attended masterclasses with Wolfram König and Jorge Sutil. Since 2007, Miladin Batalović has been the principal of the second violin section in the Symphony Orchestra of the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor.

Violist Nejc Mikolič studied with Mile Kosi in Ljubljana and Hans Peter Ochsenhofer in Vienna. While still a student, he appeared as a soloist with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, for which he was awarded the Student Prešeren Prize. After completing his studies, he served as a solo violist in the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra. He has performed at numerous international festivals as a member of various chamber music ensembles. Nejc Mikolič has been a solo violist of the Carinthian Symphony Orchestra since 2017, and has taught chamber music at the Ljubljana Academy of Music since 2021.

Nikolaj Sajko je diplomiral iz violončela v razredu Cirila Škerjanca na Akademiji za glasbo v Ljubljani, kjer je končal tudi znanstveni magistrski študij, podiplomsko pa se je v solistični igri izpopolnjeval na Univerzi Antona Brucknerja v Linzu. Bil je član mednarodnega mladinskega orkestra Gustav Mahler in član Svetovnega orkestra glasbene mladine. Od leta 2006 je namestnik soločelista v Simfoničnem orkestru SNG Maribor ter poučuje na Konservatoriju za glasbo in balet v Mariboru. Od leta 2012 programsko vodi cikel komornih koncertov Carpe artem, ki se odvija v Kazinski dvorani SNG Maribor.

Nikolaj Sajko studied cello with Ciril Škerjanec at the Ljubljana Academy of Music, where he also earned a master’s degree in theoretical subjects. He undertook postgraduate studies in solo performance at the University of Arts in Graz and the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz. He was a member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra. Since 2006, he has been employed as assistant principal in the Symphony Orchestra of the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor, while also teaching cello and chamber music at Maribor Conservatory of Music and Ballet. Since 2012, he has been the programme leader of the chamber music series Carpe artem, which takes place in the Kazina Hall of Slovene National Theatre in Maribor.