QUATUOR ÉBÈNE / PIERRE GÉNISSON

If Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet is still in favour with a wide audience today, it is undoubtedly thanks to its ability to showcase its star instrument in a discreet way, concealing under a subtle counterpoint the virtuoso flights and colours so specific to this instrument. In this work, Mozart also achieves a summit in terms of synthesis, managing to summon audience and musicians from a chamber music concert to an opera stage by means of a simple break in form, such as that which occurs in the Finale where, in one fell swoop, the artists begin to converse in a recitative that has all the makings of the forgiveness scene in The Marriage of Figaro. Martin Fröst, who made a legendary recording of this quintet over twenty years ago, revisits one of the most outstanding works in his repertoire. 

Tchaikovsky’s rarer Third String Quartet also holds a special place in the quartettists’ repertoire. Deeply Slavic in its content, the slightest counterpoint has the texture of Russian, musically rendering the undulating articulation of this language. The emotional climax of the work is the muted third movement, which transports us straight into an Orthodox church, where the implacable verticality of chords played fortissimo alternates with the old-fashioned lyricism of a melody in B major with syncopated punctuations.