Artis-Quartett

One of Vienna's great quartets

The Artis-Quartett was founded in 1980 and studied at the Vienna music university with Hatto Beyerle and Alfred Staar and in 1984/85 with the LaSalle Quartet in Cincinnati, USA. Since 1985 it has played internationally, at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Philharmonie and the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Salle Pleyel in Paris and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. In Vienna, where its members live, it has had its own cycle at the Musikverein every year since 1988.¹ By its own account the quartet has recorded 35 CDs, among others for Sony Classical, Orfeo and Nimbus, and has been honoured with the ECHO Klassik, the Diapason d'Or and the MIDEM Classical Award 2009. Among its premieres it counts works by Gottfried von Einem, Helmut Eder, Thomas Larcher, Gerhard E. Winkler and Harry Pepl.¹

The premiere in the Brahms Hall

The commission came about in the circle of Werner Pirchner, the Austrian composer and vibraphonist, and the Klangspuren Schwaz, recalls the violinist Johannes Meissl.² Pepl had previously heard the quartet play Beethoven's op. 132, the quartet with the “Holy Song of Thanksgiving”.³ The work in three parts was written in February 1993; Pepl played the four parts into the computer, mostly with the MIDI keyboard, one movement track by track with the MIDI guitar.³ On Thursday, 6 May 1993, “Über Kurz oder Lang, Von der Weite und der Enge” was heard for the first time in the Brahms Hall of the Musikverein, at the Vienna Spring Festival, between Beethoven's Quartet op. 18 No. 4 and Brahms's Piano Quintet with Stefan Vladar. The programme booklet quoted a review according to which one may “expect only the unexpected from Pepl”; Ö1 (the ORF's cultural radio channel) broadcast the concert on 12 May.⁴ During a quiet passage a thunderstorm set in, and Pepl described the rushing of the rain as an incredible atmosphere.⁵ Werner Schuster praised the quartet in the Kurier, a Vienna daily, and found the work too good for its place between the great pieces: “his hesitantly, repeatedly beginning, fragile work conveying grief is too good to be a sandwich filling”.⁶

Score and rehearsal

The score was made from the Notator file on the Atari, and Georg Pepl published it. In rehearsals Pepl sang passages and showed them with gestures, a valuable addition to the score for the violist Herbert Kefer.⁷ Meissl, who had also heard Pepl live, was very impressed by his playing.² The movement titles carry Pepl's wit: a section of the third part is called “Die mit dem Bogen tanzen” (“Those Who Dance with the Bow”), after the film “Dances with Wolves”.⁸ Stefan Heckel devotes a chapter of his own to the work in his dissertation, with an analysis, and prints the full score.⁹