Instrumental Ensembles
Artis Quartet Vienna |
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Peter Schuhmayer, 1st Violin
Johannes Meissl, 2nd Violin
Herbert Kefer, Viola
Othmar Müller,Violoncello
With a score of compact discs on major recording labels ranging from classical to contemporary, and numerous awards, the Artis Quartet presents dramatic and enriching programs to audiences and is one of the leading ensembles today. In March 2007 Andrew Lindemann Malone of “The Washington Post” observed: “The musicians brought exquisite control and eloquent phrasing to Beethoven’s great slow set of variations and they had great fun with the tough rhythmic surprises of the Scherzo.... The Finale here felt like a glimpse into the infinite, capping a compelling performance.”
Artis Quartet has performed to highest acclaim worldwide at most prestigious venues in London, New York, Vienna, Berlin, Rome, Paris, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Salzburg, Munich, Tokyo, Osaka, Venice, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Antwerp, Zurich and Frankfurt, as well as in Bangkok, New Delhi, Bombay, Istanbul, Montevideo, Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires. Since 1992 Artis Quartet regularly tours the United States. This past season 2006/2007 included their debuts at the Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
In the 2007/2008 season, Artis Quartet will return to Washington,
DC to make their debuts at the Kennedy Center and at the River Concert
Series in Maryland. Also this season, the quartet celebrates 20 years
of cycle “Artis Quartet” at Vienna’s Musikverein
in Austria. Other concert highlights will take them to Paris,
Antwerp, Madrid, Tokyo, the Casals Festival Prades, France
and Finland's Kuhmo Festival. In 2007, they released a CD of
quartets by Ignaz Pleyel (ORF). A CD of quartets by Egon Wellesz
is ready to be released in 2008 (Nimbus).
Notable moments of the quartet' s activities include a cycle
of all twenty-three Mozart quartets in a series of concerts in Vienna
and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall of which Jason James of the Asahi
Evening News, Tokyo, wrote: “Other artists try to imitate Mozart,
these four are the real thing...” and “Performances proved
the Artis Quartet to be top class in the international chamber music
league” (Alexander Arbeiter, Kurier, Vienna). This success
was repeated with cycles of the complete Schubert quartets at the
Concertgebow in Amsterdam, De Doelen in Rotterdam and at the Musikverein
in Vienna. The quartet’s concert series at the Vienna Musikverein
have been an annual event since 1988.
In recent seasons, the Artis Quartet has been invited by prestigious
international festivals such as: Salzburger Festspiele, Vienna and
Berlin Festwochen, Schleswig Holstein Festival, Ravinia Festival,
Orford Festival, Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, Lockenhaus,
Turku, Naantali, Gstaad, Prades, Granada, Bournemouth, Rouen, Hong
Kong, Paris, Colmar, Schubertiade Feldkirch, Wien Modern, Salzburger
Mozartwoche , Carinthischer Sommer, Brucknerfest Linz and Klangspuren
Schwaz among others.
They have recorded numerous CDs for Sony Classical, Nimbus Records,
CBS/Sony, Orfeo, Accord and Koch/Schwann. In addition to the "classical" quartet
repertoire on CD of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Mendelssohn,
Dvorak, Smetana and Schumann, they also perform works by Wolf,
Webern, Magnard, Dohnany, Gielen, Schönberg, Weigl, Zemlinsky
and Berg.
The Artis Quartet’s playing demonstrates technical virtuosity and an unique blending of sound that has brought them recognition via such international awards as the Grand Prix International du Disque/Academie Charles Cros, the Prix Caecilia, the INDIE Award, the Diapason d’Or, the Vienna Floetenuhr, and the German ‘Echo Prize.’ The quartet was also nominated for the Gramophone Award for ‘Best 20th Century Chamber Music CD.’
Artis Quartet has premiered many works by contemporary composers such as Gottfried v. Einem, Helmut Eder, Ian Wilson, Thomas Pernes, Richard Duenser, Gerhard E. Winkler, Thomas Larcher, Gerhard Schedl, Haimo Wisser, Wolfgang Kubizek, Harry Pepl, Antonio Pino Vargas and Tanja Gabrielle French and Jeffrey Mumford.
Studying at the University of Music in Vienna, the Artis Quartet formed in 1980. They won prizes in competitions in Cambridge, England (1983), Evian, France (1984) and Yellow Springs, USA (1985). Receiving the Friedlander Fellowship in 1984/85, they studied with the LaSalle Quartet at the College Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, USA. Since its inception, the quartet’s members have remained the same. All four members reside in Vienna. They teach at the Universities of Vienna and Graz and give master classes around the world.Peter Schuhmayer plays a violin by Johann Rombach (2001), the three other instruments Johannes Meissl's A.Guarneri (1690) violin, Herbert Kefer's J.B.Guadagnini (1784) viola and Othmar Müller's A.Amati, 1573) cello are on loan from the Austrian National Bank's collection of musical instruments.
Press Review
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Monday, January 14, 2008
The Washington Post
Artis Quartet Vienna
Some claim that wine tasting is about more than appreciating flavors
and aromas but rather, in each sip, finding something of the so-called
terroir -- the characteristics given by the geography where the wine
was made. Listening to the Artis Quartet Vienna at the Kennedy Center
on Friday evening made one wonder whether something similar might
go for string quartets. Not only was there much to appreciate in
the suave musicmaking, but the transporting concert -- a presentation
of the Washington Performing Arts Society -- said a great deal about
the group's Austrian home base.
For one thing, ghosts roam the Vienna streets and the town remains besotted with its past musical masters. The Artis Quartet carried scores of its most prominent residents, Mozart's String Quartet No. 14 in G (the first in the set of six dedicated to Haydn), Beethoven's beloved "Harp" Quartet and Brahms's haunting and lyrical A Minor Quartet, the second of three essays in the form. Oh, if only there were more time for some Schubert or perhaps Haydn himself. Too bad that Gustav Mahler never completed any string quartets, for they would surely have been program candidates.
Vienna is nothing if not refined and polished, and such were the
hallmarks of the Artis Quartet's playing. Here was a sound far from
the revved-up, weighty and eccentrically detailed style increasingly
popular among some younger American quartets. In the formal elegance
of Mozart, the fluent expression of Beethoven and the tight musical
arguments of Brahms, the Artis sound was cut straight from the cloth
of the tailored and blended European quartet tradition. And maybe
Artis's graceful phrasing and keen awareness of structure were musical
equivalents of Vienna's ornate architecture and imperial atmosphere.
-- Daniel
Ginsberg