DISSONANCE: ŽURAJ - LEBIČ - MOZART

Classical and Modern Music

Format: CD

Code: 114526

EAN: 3838898114526

Dissonance – a discordant combination of sounds, lack of agreement or consistency . At first sight, it is strange that a string quartet – an ensemble that is supposed to represent the peak of harmoniousness in chamber music, the epitome of common musical breathing and performance – should choose such a concept for its name. However, the string quartet that has taken on the name DISSONANCE clearly understands the word as a symbol of a desire to seek out untrodden performance paths. It is from here that the quartet draws inspiration for its repertoire, its keen sense for the selection and ordering of cogently performed works, which is also reflected in the present discographic debut with works by Vito Žuraj, Lojze Lebič and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The Dissonance String Quartet is made up of members of the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra:
Janez Podlesek – 1st violin
Matjaž Porovne – 2nd violin
Oliver Dizdarević – viola
Klemen Hvala – cello
The musicians first came together as a quartet for the Slovenian premiere of a string quartet by Slovenian composer Lojze Lebič, which took place in 2014, more than 30 years after the composition was written. The performance was received enthusiastically by the specialist audience, with music critic Dr Gregor Pompe writing in the daily newspaper Dnevnik on 16 June 2014: “... the ad hoc string quartet that had been assembled for what was apparently the first Slovenian performance of Lebič’s String Quartet also proved to be a great surprise. This is a work that, with its uncompromising modernist solidity, did not find enough open-minded domestic performers when it was written, so the zeal and sonic passion with which the young members of the Slovenian Philharmonic pierced Lebič’s meander of sonic cascades was all the more thrilling – and it would be worthwhile for the ensemble to grow into a permanent performance body.”
After the successful presentation of Lebič’s quartet, the musicians did in fact decide to develop their association into a permanent ensemble, due to a desire to continue their common music making. Only later did they choose the name Dissonance, which they took from the title given to Mozart’s String Quartet in C major, KV 465.
To date, the Dissonance Quartet has performed within the context of the Concert Atelier of the Slovene Society of Composers, the ISCM World Music Days 2015, Imago Sloveniae, the festival Soboški dnevi 2016, the Maribor Festival, the International Biennial of Contemporary Music in Koper, and at other venues. In collaboration with the renowned Italian clarinettist Michele Marelli, the quartet appeared at the festival Musica In Estate 2015 in Acqui Terme, Alessandria (Italy), and it also realised the project “Mozart Destrutturato” within the framework of the international cycle Symphonic Voices in Koper.
According to the members of the quartet, the name of the ensemble symbolises its mission, as the musicians are dedicated to the performance of classical literature as well as the works of contemporary composers, especially Slovenian composers.

The penetrating composer Vito Žuraj (b. 1979, Maribor) is a representative of the internationally successful generation of “not-yet-forty-year-old” Slovenian composers, for whom Europe is a self-evident common homeland. For the most talented and well-trained (both in composition and communication) members of this generation (which undoubtedly includes Vito Žuraj), studies throughout the world, international scholarships, commissions to compose new works, and performances and prizes of international festivals, ensembles and institutions are a natural consequence. Vito Žuraj has already accumulated an extensive opus of works for a variety of ensembles, from solo, electronic, chamber and symphonic works to opera
The composition for string quartet entitled Scratch is a well-honed and witty single-movement work that is fascinating from both a musical and a performance perspective. It is the composer’s third work for string quartet, after the youthful String Quartet No. 1 and Fragment. With “scratching” and pizzicati, the musicians create an engaging homogeneous and expressive musical language. Žuraj refers to the composition as “a short study for string quartet”, in which “the sonic structure is built primarily on the basis of pizzicati, which give the work a pointillist character”, and adds, “the composition was written in 2012 for the composers’ competition Premio San Fedele Milano”. The premiere performance was given by Quartetto Prometeo on 15 September 2012 at the 4th International Pharos Contemporary Music Festival in Delikipos, Cyprus.
Composer, conductor, teacher and music writer Lojze Lebič (b. 1934, Prevalje) is a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and a recipient of the most prominent Slovenian and many international artistic awards and prizes. First educated as an archaeologist, he is one of the most important Slovenian musical figures of the 20th and 21st centuries, having created an extremely compelling, rich, cosmopolitan, but nonetheless archetypally Slovenian musical opus. Despite being a composer who typically chisels and polishes each of his artworks over a long period of time, Lebič’s compositional opus – created over more than half a century, spanning from the choral works of his student years until today – includes dozens of highly imaginative vocal, choral, chamber, electronic, ensemble, symphonic and vocal-instrumental works, which are performed throughout the world by ensembles from all of the continents. His scores have been published in Europe and the USA, and his discography extends to double-digit numbers.
Lebič’s works never cease to gain our admiration as the purest expression of the musical absolute. Given that the string quartet has, through different musical periods, remained one of the most characteristic ensembles for this kind of musical art, it is surprising that Lebič has composed so few works for this combination. Nonetheless, his four-movement String Quartet (1983, commissioned by Deutscher Verlag Für Musik), was, as early as in 1988, very well characterised by musicologist Dr Ivan Klemenčič in the Musicological Annual as representing “a synthesis of modernist efforts. Artistically, it is, for Slovenia, an unsurpassed compendium of contemporary quartet sound, which is always subordinated to the composer’s humanist vision of art ... one of the most important Slovenian quartet compositions”. Klemenčič’s assessment absolutely and irrefutably still holds today. The emergence of the Dissonance String Quartet only confirms how a great musical masterpiece such as Lebič’s String Quartet, can, on its performance, both inspire and compel musicians to commit to further engaging with common chamber music making.
In his brilliant opus, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (b. 1765, Salzburg, d. 1791, Vienna) has 23 string quartets. String Quartet No. 19 in C major, KV 465, “Dissonance” falls into the mature period of his composing for this noble ensemble, being one of the six so-called Haydn Quartets (Nos. 14 –19) written in Vienna between 1782 and 1785. These works are regarded as the pinnacle of Mozart’s quartet creation, written at a time when the father of the string quartet, Joseph Haydn, had already established the genre’s four-movement structure. Mozart and Haydn were, of course, acquainted by this time and had often played music together. As we can read in the introduction to the critical edition of Mozart’s string quartets (see Ludwig Finscher, Bärenreiter Verlag Kassel, 1961, 1989), Quartet No. 19 was performed in the presence of Haydn and certain other undocumented friends just one day after Mozart had, on 15 January 1785, entered the work in his manuscript catalogue along with the other five quartets of this “cycle”. Haydn heard the work again at Mozart’s home one month later, most likely performed on this occasion by Wolfgang and Leopold Mozart along with Barons Anton and Bartholomäus Tint. As Finscher writes, Haydn was, according to Leopold, so moved by this private concert that he uttered the famous statement that was later reported by the proud father, Leopold, in a letter to Nannerl: “I tell you before God, as an honest man, that your son is the greatest composer whom I know personally or by name, he has taste and over and above that, the greatest knowledge of the science of composition.”

Mojca Menart

TRACKS:

1          Vito Žuraj: Scratch            (listen!)                                         5:37

Lojze Lebič: String Quartet
2          I.                                                                                         3:36
3          II.                                                                                       3:22
4          III.                                                                                      3:48
5          IV.                                                                                      6:39

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet No. 19 in C major, KV 465, "Dissonance"
6          I.       Adagio – Allegro                                                10:54
7          II.     Andante cantabile                                            7:13
8          III.    Menuetto: Allegro. Trio.                                4:43
9          IV.    Allegro molto                                                      7:57