CONCERT PROGRAM

Fletch (2012) by Rebecca Saunders (*1967)

Més enllà de la quarta dimensió (2023) by Jose Luís Escrivá (*1984) (world premiere)

Im Andenken (2007) by Sarah Nemtsov (*1980)

Tetras (1983) by Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001)

PROGRAM NOTES

“Fletch” is the feather that is placed on the arrow, giving it the ability to fly.
“I like the image, but also the sound of the word. It’s related to the basic sound of this piece. You throw something into the air and it makes it fly.” Rebecca Saunders
Fletch is a furious ongoing exploration of a specific physical gesture and sound bite. In its purest form, this elemental sonic gesture is a double-harmonic trill played arc-up sul ponticello, often with a fast glissando, rapidly crescendoing from nothing to fortissimo.
This sound bite is captivating, immediate and present, but also inherently unstable and unpredictable. The bow reveals again and again the rapid, almost mechanical, manic trilling sound that lurks beneath the surface of silence.
The surface, the weight and the touch are part of the reality of the musical interpretation: the weight and the used surface of the bow, the differentiation of the touch of the fingers of the left hand on the string… Feeling the weight of the sound is fundamental: the essential materiality of sound, the grinding and noise of an instrument, the tracing of the essence of fragments of color and the exploration of the physical gesture that creates a trace of sound.

Beyond the Fourth Dimension is a string quartet written under the influence
of two phenomena: time dilation and the unconscious.
Reflecting on both concepts we find various points of union, and at the same time of opposition, with the act of musical composition. Above all in what refers to the instant, to the inexorable advance of time towards the future, but also in what is underlying, in what
hidden, in the sounds of the past that remain within us, and in the interaction of the conscious and the unconscious. All in all, the sound discourse develops through various acceleration processes that go through different temporal dimensions, ephemeral and imperishable, which take us on a journey through time and invite us to delve into different tonal dimensions, real and imaginary, and semiotics.

In Sarah Nemtsov’s “Im Andenken”, based on the excerpt from the 2nd movement “Andante” of Franz Schubert’s String Quartet in C minor D 703, the German composer not only deals with the music of the great Austrian composer, but more in generally, from the concept of the fragment itself.
In this quartet written in 2007, the composer wanted to create as fluid a transition as possible between the different musical spheres. Thus, on the one hand, we find a faithful quotation of Schubert’s quartet at the beginning, followed by a part that acts as a “bridge”. On the other hand, however, even when the composer herself claims to have “arrived into herself”, the form used by Schubert always remains present, albeit at an almost subcutaneous level.
Music finds this guideline, reacts to it, counteracts it; sometimes he quotes it in excerpts and other times he ignores it.
More generally, with “Im Andenken” Nemtsov addresses the thorny question of proximity and distance. Indeed, Schubert’s music still seems familiar to us today, although in reality it should be perceived as far away, with its different historical and cultural context; for this reason, one should feel closer to the contemporary, the proximity to the present. However, as is well known, the masters are defined as such by the “timelessness” of their works. In reference to this concept, the beginning of Schubert’s fragment is reproduced by Nemtsov at the end of his “mute” quartet and played almost twice as slowly, like an echo, out of time with her.

With the performance of its most famous string quartet, “Tetras”, the Fabrik Quartet celebrated in 2022 the centenary of the birth of Iannis Xenakis.
A truly original piece in the world of string quartets, “Tetras” is a fifteen-minute rush of raw energy and rhythmic vitality. A vortex of pure sonic emotion, combining dozens of notes into thick tonal groups that rush forward and then recede like waves of sound.
Composer and architect Iannis Xenakis used geometric and mathematical principles to compose: as a result, in Tetras, as in most of Xenakis’ works, music and architecture merge, creating true “sound blocks” and a spatial dimension of sound.
The public is especially impressed by the physical presence of the music, its exceptional plasticity and the way it tangibly fills the space.
Xenakis does not regard a string quartet as a conversation between four reasonable people, like Goethe did in a famous letter to Zelter. Xenakis also rejects the often used comparison between music and language: “Music is not a language. A musical work is like a complex rock formation with grooves and engraved patterns that people can decipher in a thousand different ways.”

FABRIK QUARTET

Fabrik Quartet was founded in 2022 from the desire of its four members to cultivate and disseminate the music of our time,
exploring its diverse expressive potential and connecting with the public through its powerful communicative possibilities.
The quartet was formed within the International Ensemble Modern Academy program in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. In this context,
the four members had the opportunity to work intensively on contemporary repertoire and to perform at various contemporary music festivals
across Europe: Manifeste 2022, Paris; Lucerne Festival 2022; Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik; Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Utrecht; Time of Music Festival, Vitasaari (Finland); INMM Spring Conference Darmstadt; F*Lab Festival, Frankfurt;. Recording for radio stations such as WDR 3, SRF…

The Fabrik Quartet has been awarded in different international chamber music competitions:
in December 2022 they received 1st prize in the Polytechnischer Competition of the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt;
in September 2022 they received first prize at the “A. Rubinstein” International Chamber Music Competition in Germany;
in March 2022 they won first prize at the III Re_Cre@ International Contemporary Music Competition in Castelló, Spain.
In November 2022 they received the Kamar Percy und Ingeborg John-Stiftung award, which will sponsor
the recording of a professional CD with the German label Bad Homburger.

Since October 2022, the Fabrik Quartet has been studying at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt
with Prof. Lucas Fels (Arditti Quartet) and Prof. Tim Vogler (Vogler Quartet).
As a quartet they received master classes from various members of the Ensemble Modern: Eva Böcker, Jagdish Mistry and Giorgos Panagiotidis, among others.
They also had the opportunity to work with Rebecca Saunders in her first string quartet “Fletch” and were selected to perform
the quartet at the Frankfurt Lab Festival. This work has also been recorded for the German Radio station SWR 2.

Fabrik Quartet

Violin: Federico Ceppetelli and Adam Woodward
Viola: Jacobo Díaz Robledillo
Cello: Elena Cappelletti