Opera! Quartet music by Puccini, Verdi, Mozart, Bizet

“Wild and untamed, that’s how I would characterize Matangi. We don’t color within the musical lines!” – Maria-Paula Majoor, violinist Matangi
Program
Mozart String Quartet KV465 ‘Dissonant Quartet’
Bizet Carmen Fantasy (arr. Van Prooijen)
Puccini Crisantemic
Verdi String Quartet in E major.

Goethe already said it in 1829: “The string quartet is my favorite of all instrumental music. One hears four intelligent people talking to each other, believing to understand something of their conversation and getting to know the idiosyncrasies of the instruments.” The Matangi Quartet plays in Opera! world-famous string quartets by great opera composers.

Opera composers have also ventured into writing a string quartet. Mozart wrote many of them, Puccini wrote Crisantemi for string quartet and liked the melody so much that years later he included them in his opera Manon Lescaut. Verdi was bored when the premiere of his opera Aida was postponed and in the meantime composed his only string quartet. Three world-famous string quartets by these great opera composers are on the program of the Matangi Quartet in Heerlen. In addition to a more recent quartet by Marijn van Prooijen based on the opera Carmen van Bizet.

Always surprising
The Matangi Quartet has been a welcome guest on the Dutch and international concert stages for 20 years. It plays with great classical musicians, has won prestigious awards and likes to participate in adventurous crossovers. Among others with comedians such as Herman van Veen and Youp van ‘t Hek, bandoneon player Carel Kraayenhof, jazz trumpeter Eric Vloeimans, and jazz pianist Michiel Braam. With these groundbreaking forays, Matangi succeeds in enthusing a new audience for the string quartet. And just as important: it provides additional inspiration to give new impetus to the rich classical repertoire that has been built up over the past 250 years – from Haydn to Adès.

Source : PLT Website