New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ New Esterhazy Quartet Official Website) San Francisco's New Esterházy Quartet was founded in 2006 to perform an historic series of concerts — the first American performances of the complete cycle of 68 Haydn string quartets on period instruments.
Lisa Weiss, Kati Kyme, Anthony
Martin and
William Skeen, widely respected and sought-after early music performers, have collaborated for many years as principals of the acclaimed Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and American Bach Soloists, as well as individually performing in distinguished early music ensembles in the United States and Europe. Since the completion of the initial Haydn cycle, they continue their exploration of Haydn by programming chamber music of those contemporaries of Haydn he inspired and influenced, including Mozart and Beethoven, as well as adding concertos, cantatas, and even symphonies to their concerts.
HAYDN IN AMERICA, the latest CD release from the New Esterházy Quartet includes three quartets (Opus 2, no. 6; Opus 17, no. 4, and Opus 77, no. 2) whose performance parts were gleaned from the archives of the Moravian
Music Foundation.
The Moravian Brotherhood, music-loving Christian settlers descended from the persecuted followers of the 15th century dissenter and martyr Jan Hus, brought with them to their settlements in the New World their disciplined life-style, their joy in music-making, and their meticulous record-keeping, including hand-copied transcriptions of the 18th-century chamber music they loved. These survive along with thousands of other works in the Moravian
Music Foundation's Collegium Musicum collections. One of the Haydn scores is a copy made by the Dutch-born composer Johann Friedrich Peter, whose 1789 viola quintets are the first known pieces of chamber music composed in America.
Violist Anthony
Martin describes the process of preparing the music for performance and recording: "These copies and early editions differ in many interesting details from the various modern editions currently available, and our attempts to distinguish legitimate variations from simple errors of the pen or the engraver's stylus led to many long and fruitful discussions."
This recording has been made possible through the Musical Grant Program, which is administered by the San Francisco
Friends of Chamber
Music (https://www.sffcm.org), and supported by the Heller Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation and San Francisco Grants for the Arts.
HAYDN IN AMERICA and all the New Esterházy Quartet's recordings are available on their website, https://www.newesterhazy.org.
Praise for the New Esterházy Quartet:
"The ensemble created a sumptuous sound with beautifully controlled dynamics" - Early
Music America.
"The New Esterházy Quartet's performance demonstrated camaraderie, marked above all by exceptional unity of purpose and total commitment to the group's interpretive schemes." - San Francisco Classical Voice
FOR INFO: https://www.newesterhazy.org
Editors, please note:
Digital photos, CDs, and more are available by contacting Kati Kyme (katikyme(at)aol(dot)com), cell: (510) 517-0692.
