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If you wish to add your review to the concert please email your comments and they will be uploaded onto the website. Blackthorpe Barn reserves the right to edit comments submitted.
Concert, very good. Particularly Beethoven and Smetna.
Helen Gardner, Wickhambrook
Absolutely perfect. Thank you.
Wendy
Quotes
The sound these Czech musicians make - beautifully balanced, centered in warm, dark regions of tone colour, musical in every part - is deeply pleasurable and also deeply traditional. The Wihan's playing is roomy with rubato, and the musicians regroup with natural ease around whichever of them has the main line at the moment.
The New York Times
‘Recently, I´ve been leading discussions of how interpretation affects our perception of music, and nothing demonstrates this more vividly than the lithe, surging performance by Martin Kasik and the Wihan Quartet of Schumann´s Piano Quintet, which comes closest to capturing my sense of what the composer´s personality must have been. It is a present I would be pleased to give.’
The Gramophone Magazine
‘Schubert’s C Major Quintet was quite simply as fine a performance as one is ever likely to hear, in a reading which showed profound understanding of the music, everything perfectly judged and superbly played. It was a performance that will remain in the memory for a long time.’
Eastern Daily Press
‘Given playing of such virtuosic quality it is surely only a matter of time before the Wihan Quartet becomes a household name.’
The Strad
Biography
The Wihan Quartet, formed in 1985, are heirs to the great Czech musical tradition. The Quartet’s outstanding reputation for the interpretation of its native Czech heritage and of the many classical, romantic and modern masterpieces of the string quartet repertoire is widely acknowledged.
They have developed an impressive international career, which includes visits to major festivals in Europe and the Far East. They visit the United States and Japan regularly and have had highly acclaimed tours of Australia and New Zealand. They are frequent visitors to the UK and can often be heard on BBC Radio 3 as well as in concert at Wigmore Hall, Bridgewater Hall, the South Bank and many other venues throughout the country.
The Wihan Quartet has won many International Competitions including The Prague Spring Festival and the Osaka ‘Chamber Festa’. In 1991, they won both the First Prize and the Audience Prize in the London International String Quartet Competition.
During 2008 the Quartet completed the first ever cycle of Beethoven Quartets in Prague and also repeated this cycle at Blackheath Halls, London. "Their unanimity of conception was admirably and readily apparent in the opening concert." Musical Opinion "This was an outstanding recital. The performance of the first of the expansive Razumovsky Quartets, Opus 59, was inspired and gripping from beginning to end." Musical Pointers
Their landmark series of Beethoven concerts in Prague was recorded for release on CD and DVD on the Nimbus Alliance label. The Independent Newspaper said of the release of the Late Quartets: "these [performances] are excellent: their fiery interpretations do full justice to Beethoven’s final masterpieces." and International Record Review "beautiful clarity....the Wihan’s capacity for lightness of touch well suits op.127....the Presto (op.131) is played with splendid vigour".
The Wihan are Quartet in Residence at Trinity College of Music, London, and for several years have taught many of the UK’s gifted young Quartets at Pro Corda in Suffolk. The Quartet are great supporters of the work of the CAVATINA Chamber Music Trust, giving inspirational concerts and master classes to young people in many parts of the country.
Leoš epický plays on a 2003 prize-winning violin by Jan Spidlen, owned by the violin dealer Mila Strnad. Jan Schulmeister plays on a Jan Baptista DvoYák violin (1879) and JiYí }igmund’s viola is a 1659 Andrea Hieronimus Amati, on permanent loan from the Czech State collection. Aleš KaspYík’s cello was made in Paris in 1890 by Henri Thouvenel.
Full details of the Quartet’s available recordings can be found on their website: www.wihanquartet.com |
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After concert supper 6
Bookings for after concert supper is now closed.
MAIN:
Slow cooked belly of pork with cumberland jus
VEGETARIAN:
Caramelised onion and goat’s cheese tart (V)
Crushed new potatoes with herbs & olive oil
Panache seasonal vegetables
DESSERT:
Homemade tiramisu and warm coffee and chocolate sauce
Tea, coffee & herbal infusions
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