THE BENNEWITZ QUARTET

Today, the Bennewitz Quartet is one of the world’s elite chamber music ensembles, giving concerts on prestigious stages worldwide, and earning great critical acclaim both for their playing and for their unique choice of repertoire, which is 100% reaffirmed by their new album An Evening in Vienna 1784. The album brings to life a legendary encounter exactly 240 years ago in Vienna between four composers: Haydn, Mozart, Dittersdorf, and Vaňhal.

The members of the Bennewitz Quartet are violinists Jakub Fišer and Štěpán Ježek, violist Jiří Pinkas, and cellist Štěpán Doležal. The new album was released by Supraphon on 20 September 2024, and we discussed it with Štěpán Ježek, who revealed some interesting facts surrounding the recording of this noteworthy album and also gave us insights into the plans of the Bennewitz Quartet for the season that is just beginning, when the quartet is to return to Berlin’s Konzerthaus and to Wigmore Hall in London. Among other things, they have a tour of the USA coming in November.

What was your inspiration that triggered recording a new album with repertoire based on one remarkable musical evening in 1784 in Vienna that remains to this day the source of much musicological speculation?

There can be no doubt about the meaningfulness of our choice of repertoire. The importance of the historically documented gathering of the four composers Haydn, Dittersdorf, Mozart, and Vaňhal, their friendship, and their mutual inspiration were the perfect inducement for us to make a recording featuring works by all of them. We chose specific works on the basis of when the compositions were written, so they would coincide with the time when the actual gathering took place, so it was probable that they were actually played that evening.

In the course of several seasons, we played this programme on a variety of stages such as the Brucknerhaus in Linz or the beautiful hall of the Würzburg Residence. Meanwhile, our view of the music noticeably developed and transformed itself, so the programme’s resulting form for the new album emerged from a real creative process. We therefore came to feel that the whole programme had matured interpretively enough that it made sense to record it for posterity.

What direction did the recording sessions take?

The hardest thing, but also the most interesting for us, was finding the personal nuances in the musical languages of each of the four composers, and to delineate those characteristic moments appropriately, allowing them to stand out. Haydn is a master at handling the smallest musical gestures and assembling them like tiny shards in a mosaic or like reflections in a kaleidoscope. Mozart, on the other hand, is able to expand musical phrases and to sustain a lyrical line to unprecedented lengths. Vaňhal has a lyricism that is decidedly closer to Mozart, but his music is more archaic harmonically, with passages where one hears the legacy of the baroque masters. On the other hand, Dittersdorf is often earthy and direct, making him resemble Haydn more.

And about the actual recording process, I would like to add that we took advantage of the opportunity afforded us for the first time of making this recording at the legendary Domovina studio in the Prague neighbourhood Holešovice, where the famed Smetana Quartet, for example, also made their great recordings long ago. The acoustics there are wonderful, and the sound is inspiring, so one can get into the music more easily without necessarily feeling constrained by exaggerated concerns over technical perfection, as can easily be the case at less suitable recording venues.

Can you imagine what the atmosphere may have been like on that evening in Vienna in 1784, when four great composers played together?

It must have been fantastic! Anyone with an orientation in the music scene at the day surely must have sensed how special the circumstances were. At that moment, the four men were “looking over each other’s shoulders”, so to speak. They must have discussed what inspired them or what appealed to them. Michael Kelly also brings this up in his diary, saying that “there was a little science among them”. It was probably also this gathering that provoked Haydn’s immortal confession to Leopold Mozart (the father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), writing to him that his son was “the greatest composer known to me personally or by name”. It was definitely an unparalleled moment in music history.

What interesting projects await the Bennewitz Quartet in the coming season?

This season should again be very interesting and joyful. We are looking forward to a new collaboration with Veronika Hagen, the violist of the Hagen Quartet, for appearances with her at several concerts in Europe playing quintets by Dvořák and Brahms. We are returning to Berlin’s Konzerthaus and to Wigmore Hall in London as well as to Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle. Already this November, a lovely tour of the USA awaits us, and after a two-year absence we will be back at the historic hall of the Harvard Musical Association in Boston. We will also appear in Providence, Houston, and many other places.