String Quintet in C major, Op. post. 163, D 956 Quartettsatz in C minor, D 703, ‘Quartettsatz’
Celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, the Brodsky Quartet has performed more than 3000 concerts on the major concert stages of the world and has released more than seventy recordings. A natural curiosity and insatiable desire to explore have propelled the group in many artistic directions and continue to ensure it not only a place at the very forefront of the international chamber music scene but also a rich and varied musical existence. As they comment in their booklet note:
‘It seems fitting to mark the milestone by recording this epic and most celebrated of chamber works, Schubert’s String Quintet in C major, a piece which we have lived with since childhood, and which we have played with a long line of illustrious cellists. One of our earliest performances took place with Terence Weil, our mentor at college, at his retirement concert, just as we were starting out on our professional journey. Now the wonderful young Laura van der Heijden, who comes to this recording with a maturity which belies her years, represents with respect to us a similar age gap, proving that age is insignificant where there is a meeting of musical minds. Now we look forward to whatever our sixth decade might bring.’ Recording: Church of St Michael’s, Highgate, London: 13 – 15 December 2021. Laura van der Heijden plays a late-seventeenth-century cello by Francesco Ruggieri, of Cremona.
