SATURDAY 26 MARCH 2022
AT 19.30

Quartetto Prometeo
Concert

David Lang
Wreck/Wed 

Stefano Scodanibbio
Mas Lugares - reinventions of Claudio Monteverdi 

Salvatore Sciarrino
Quartetto n.7
  Généalogie du Sacre da Domenico Scarlatti
  Andante cantabile (Sonata in mi bemolle maggiore K.474)
  Allegro (Sonata in sol maggiore K.105)

Benjamin Britten
Quartetto n.3
  Duets
  Ostinato
  Solo
  Burlesque
  Recitative & Passacaglia: La Serenissima

Quartetto Prometeo
Giulio Rovighi  first violin
Aldo Campagnari  second violin
Danusha Waskiewicz  viola
Francesco Dillon  cello

This programme was born around the idea of "listening". A precious attitude that, musically, finds its maximum expression in making chamber music and in the formation of the quartet, a true "sixteen-stringed instrument" with an absolutely unique balance, born from the fusion of four sensibilities and personalities "listening" together.

One of the main themes of the programme is the reference to the “aquatic" element. This is the case in Wreck/Wed by David Lang, which opens the evening. This piece, originally written for the Kronos Quartet is characterised by an impervious difficulty. We performed its world premiere at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena.

The first movement, Wreck, is an incessant perpetual motion with "minimal" accents, inspired by the shipwreck scene of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, while the second movement, with its lyrical and suspended tones represents the wedding scene.

The “aquatic” theme then returns at the end of the programme in the third quartet by Benjamin Britten, inspired by Venice. The last movement bears the title La Serenissima and is a soothing and poetic Passacaglia that represents a kind of spiritual testament of the elderly composer.

The musical form of the Passacaglia takes us back to ancient times, another of the common threads that bind the songs in the programme. Over the years, we have, together with great Italian composers such as Salvatore Sciarrino, Stefano Scodanibbio, as well as Ivan Fedele, Stefano Gervasoni, Giorgio Battistelli and Francesco Filidei, worked on a project around the transcription of the ancient form for string quartet.

From this project, we will present on this occasion, the reworking of Monteverdi with a magical and suspended, almost "floating" sound of Stefano Scodanibbio, and two of the most eccentric (the reference to the Stravinskian "Sacre [Rite]" in the title is not coincidental) sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti, in the refined reinterpretation by Salvatore Sciarrino.

At the centre of the programme is the Quartetto n.7 by the same Sciarrino, an exemplary work of "ecological" research on sound, incessantly carried out by the visionary Sicilian composer and an evocative exercise in perception and “deep listening".

Francesco Dillon

Quartetto Prometeo – Winner of the 50th Prague Spring International Music Competition in 1998, Quartetto Prometeo was also awarded the Bärenreiter Special Prize for best performance of Mozart’s Quartet K 590 faithful to the original score, the City of Prague Prize, as best quartet and the Pro Harmonia Mundi Award.

In 1998 Quartetto Prometeo was elected resident group at the Britten Pears Academy in Aldeburgh, received the Thomas Infeld award at the International Summer Academy Prague-Vienna-Budapest for “outstanding performance of a chamber music work” in 1999 and finished second at the Concours International de Quatuors in Bordeaux. In 2000 it was once again awarded the Bärenreiter Special Prize at the ARD Competition in Munich.

The group received the Silver Lion at the Venice Music Biennale 2012

The quartet’s international performances include Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Musikverein, Wigmore Hall, Aldeburgh Festival, Prague Spring Festival, Mecklenburg Festival, Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Roma, Società del Quartetto di Milano, Amici della Musica di Firenze, Teatro La Fenice.

Collaborations with musicians including Mario Brunello, David Geringas, Veronika Hagen, Alexander Lonquich, Enrico Pace, Stefano Scodanibbio, Quartetto Belcea, Enrico Bronzi, Mariangela Vacatello, Lilya Zilberstein.

The artistic relationship with Salvatore Sciarrino, Ivan Fedele and Stefano Gervasoni is particularly intense.The group has recorded for Ecm, Sony and Brilliant.

Since 2013 it has been the “quartet in residence” at the Accademia Chigiana of Siena in collaboration with Salvatore Sciarrino’s composition class and since 2019 has held quartet courses at the Accademia musicale Santa Cecilia in Portogruaro and since 2020 in Rome as part of Avos Project.