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Our 2010--2011
Past Seasons: |
The Mandelring String Quartet
There can't be many ensemble performers in their 30s who can boast a repertoire of 150 works. But then three of the four Mandelring Quartet members have been making music together for more than 20 years--the advantage of being siblings raised in a music-filled German home. Violinists Sebastian and Nanette Schmidt and cellist brother Bernhard have been devoted to chamber music since their father introduced them to it in childhood. The Mandelring Quartet (named after the street on which they lived in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse) first captured attention in 1991 with victory at the ARD competition in Munich. At the end of that year they gained the international press jury award at the Evian competition. Three years later, the Paolo Borciani competition in Italy awarded them a gold medal. The violist of the quartet is Roland Glassl, who joined the quartet in 1999. His return to Germany from study at Indiana University coincided with the departure of Michael Scheitzbach, the quartet's original violist. The quartet had a try-out rehearsal session with Glassl in which it became immediately obvious that they would all benefit from a permanent relationship. A typical Mandelring concert is memorable for its penetrating sense of architecture, artistic insight and clarity of tone. Each member has a distinctive sound; the Schmidts all play early 19th-century Italian instruments and Glassl a viola made by his father. The quartet's CD and SACD recordings, several of which have been awarded the German Record Critics' Prize or been nominated for the Cannes Classical Award, illustrate its outstanding quality and wide-ranging repertoire. These recordings include a Schubert string quartet cycle, piano quintets by Brahms and Franck and chamber works by the French early romantic composer Georges Onslow. The series "Brahms and his Contemporaries" is devoted to the quartets of Brahms and less well-known composers such as Friedrich Gernsheim and Heinrich von Herzogenberg. The Strad Magazine selected the first CD of this series as their "CD of the Month." The Mandelring Quartet is currently engaged in recording the complete string quartets of Shostakovich. |
