Quartetto Prometeo

The renowned and exceptionally versatile Italian Quartetto Prometeo will play string quartets by Giacinto Scelsi, Salvatore Sciarrino, György Kurtág and Barbara Monk Feldman in the historic Sophienkirche in Berlin-Mitte as part of the festival for contemporary music, MaerzMusik.

In their compositional creations, the Italians Scelsi and Sciarrino as well as the Hungarian composer György Kurtág and the Canadian composer Barbara Monk Feldman have all found completely contrasting and individual musical languages that often radically contradict traditional ways of thinking and categorising and thereby open up new and often inconceivable horizons in contemporary music. In this manner Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988), who was first discovered in the 1980s and initially deemed controversial, separates the quartet formation into 16 strings in his idiosyncratic and impressive String Quartet No. 4 (1964) and calculates a microtonal sound scape, in which he “isolates” the sound material and articulates each sound anew. Barbara Monk Feldman (*1953) uses fascinating methods in Desert Scape (2004) to vary the timbre and atmosphere of the string quartet as a metaphor for the transformation of nature and for diversity in desert landscapes, where the wind breaks the silence and becomes eternal. With his 6 Moments Musicaux for String Quartet Op. 44 (1999-2005), premiered on the occasion of his 80th birthday, György Kurtág (*1926), alongside György Ligeti the most influential Hungarian composer after 1945, created a suite which, in reference to his own works, reflects upon a music that is free and playful as much as it is concentrated and spiritual. Finally, unique musical textures beyond known styles and “isms” also shape the compositions of Salvatore Sciarrino (*1947). His most recent composition for Quartetto Prometeo, String Quartet No. 8 was commissioned by Aldeburgh Festival, MaerzMusik, Società del Quartetto di Milano and Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival and the performance at MaerzMusik will be the German premiere.