…consists of four experienced musicians who each have an established reputation in the chamber music world. The love for the quartet repertoire, the joy of digging deep into these masterpieces together and the search for harmony, electricity and a unique sound in their quartet playing, are the driving forces behind the Taurus Quartet.
News…
NEWS: Taurus Quartet is taking a sabbatical for one concert season, from September ’23- June ’24!
Liesbeth, 2nd violin in the quartet, is leaving for one of the craziest projects in the classical music world:
“I am going on a 1-year journey around the world, together with my family, offering classical music in the usual concert circuits, but especially in remote places where access to culture is less obvious due to geographical, economic or political situation with the aim of connecting, exchanging, sharing and learning. A journey around the world but to the heart of human culture!
We offer about 150 shows/concerts during one year, unique collaborations with local artists and workshops for children all over the world. We want to convey a more optimistic, peaceful and creative vision of the future through music and encounters.”
To follow their adventure you can visit orbitmusicians.com, as well as all social media under the name ‘Orbit Musicians’. Wietse, Vincent and Martijn are enjoying Liesbeth’s world trip from a distance and the quartet is looking forward to an inspiring reunion and reunion in the summer of 2024! Taurus Quartet is working on a full concert agenda for the ’24/’25 season!!
Just before Liesbeth’s departure Taurus Quartet made a new CD recording with music by Beethoven, Webern, Kurtag, Scelsi, de Machaut, de la Rue… SLOW!!
Livestream!
We will be live streaming our concert with the Five Pieces of Schulhoff and Ligeti string quartet no.1 ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’ live from Conservatory Hall Brussels, 7th May 2021.
Livestream!
We will be live streaming our concert with quartet no.2 of Ryelandt and quartet no.3 of Brahms from Concertgebouw Bruges, 3rd March 2021.
Join us and tune in!!
Livestream!
Beethoven string quartet no.13, opus 130 and Grosse Fugue opus 133 of from Conservatory Hall Brussels, 20th November 2020.
Livestream!
We will be live streaming all six concerts preforming the complete series of Beethoven string quartets from the Nottebohmzaal in Antwerp, from 15-18 October 2020.
Join us and tune in!!
Concert 1. Thursday 15th October, 20:00
Concert 2. Friday 16th October, 20:00
Concert 3. Saturday 17th October, 15:00
Concert 4. Saturday 17th October, 20:00
Concert 5. Sunday 18th October, 11:00
Concert 6. Saturday 18th October, 15:00
News!
Taurus Quartet has completed its first CD project! A musical diptych with works by Schubert and Janáček, with the overarching theme ‘the approaching death’: Horizon funèbre.
The full picture of the painting ‘Wheatfield with Crows’, the Horizon funèbre of Van Gogh, will be created by our two CDs!
You can buy those CDs in the shops and you will find these recordings as well on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Qobuz and Youtube.
[interactive_banner banner_title=”2nd Cd Taurus Quartet” banner_image=”4711|http://taurus-quartet.be/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/hoes-CD2.jpg”]
The two works recorded here have many striking similarities, despite having been composed more than a century apart: both works are programmatic in character and have a direct link with literary works in which death is omnipresent. The inspiration that both composers drew from these texts makes the imaginative and narrative power of the music highly tangible. Both works provide a direct expression of the extreme emotions that death summons up: grief, pain, despair and madness.
The continuous and palpable tension between the cruelty of death and the fragility of life is fundamental to the 14th quartet of Schubert, ‘Death and the Maiden’. The young girl resists death and pleads with him to leave. Death, however, tries to seduce her and to convince her that she will find rest with him. This ambiguity of death, simultaneously scarifying and consoling, is what makes the piece so gripping.
Janáček based his first string quartet on a short story by Tolstoy, which ends with a terrible murder. Every metaphor and emotion of Tolstoys story is woven into a coherent musical narration. We hear tenderness, madness, despair, aggression, euphoria, and finally the rattling of the speeding train on which the greater part of Tolstoy’s story has taken place. The clattering rhythm of the train is the same as the crazed tarantella in Schubert’s quartet: in both pieces, the finale hurtles to its conclusion in a lunatic dance of death.
[interactive_banner banner_title=”1st Cd Taurus Quartet” banner_image=”4710|http://taurus-quartet.be/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/hoes-CD1.jpg”]
The combination of these two works on one CD is unique in the field. Despite the fact that there is almost a century between these two compositions, there are some striking similarities. They are final string quartets, written just before the death of these composers; reflecting on life and celebrating it, both with their own unique expression and both overwhelming in their extremes.
Schubert’s last string quartet is a magnum opus, a work in which he describes the greatness of life in all its dimensions, by using unprecedented sound effects and dynamic extremes. The first movement has the rhythm as a motor, the heartbeat of the music. The following movement combines the most tender singing with fierce and wild outbursts. A nervousness in the scherzo with a flashback to a touching, naive and child-like tune in the trio. And a wonderful finale, in which sadness and euforia go hand in hand at any time.
In his dying years Janáček wrote a musical reflection on the 600 letters written to his great platonic love, the 38 years younger Kamila. The extremes that resound here are overwhelming… the pain, sadness and anger, but also pure love, tenderness and ecstasy have perhaps never been so humanly and directly expressed as in this work.
Contact Etcetera Records if you would like to receive a CD