Saint-Saëns & Taneyev: Taste the Best Malevich Ensemble

• Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 - 1921): Piano Quartet No. 1 in E Major:
• 1 Saint-Saëns: Piano Quartet No. 1 in E Major: I. Poco andante maestoso - Allegro vivace 08:45
• 2 Saint-Saëns: Piano Quartet No. 1 in E Major: II. Andante 05:36
• 3 Saint-Saëns: Piano Quartet No. 1 in E Major: III. Finale. Allegro con fuoco 05:37
• Sergei Taneyev (1856 - 1915): Piano Quartet in E Major, Op. 20:
• 4 Taneyev: Piano Quartet in E Major, Op. 20: I. Allegro brillante 13:39
• 5 Taneyev: Piano Quartet in E Major, Op. 20: II. Adagio più tosto largo 08:46
• 6 Taneyev: Piano Quartet in E Major, Op. 20: III. Finale. Allegro molto 15:43
• Total Runtime 58:06

Info for Saint-Saëns & Taneyev: Taste the Best

"The debut album of our Malevich Ensemble includes works by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) and Sergej Taneyev (1856-1915). The two piano quartets are about 50 years apart in terms of the composition's time. Thus our concept is not so much about presenting the audience with two contrasting works, as more about demonstrating the evolution of the romantic piano quartet as a genre.

At first glance, it would be hard to find more dissimilar works in quartet literature: Saint-Saëns' 1853 youth quartet is composed in the tradition of Mozart and Mendelssohn, while Taneyev's 1904 quartet surely represents the late Romantic symphonic style, inspired by Tchaikovsky and Franck. And if Saint-Saëns' opus fully complies with the notion of "chamber music", Taneyev's work surpasses it several times over. It feels as if the composer "squeezed" a grand romantic symphony into the framework of an ensemble consisted of four players.

But closer inspection reveals several similarities between the works: these include a common tonality (in E Major), which also represents another idea of the chosen program for our album-showing two drastically different "romantic" views on one tonal-sound world, and the general structure of the cycles (three movements in each of the quartets). Another factor that unites these works is a sort of a "tribute" that the composers pay to genres and styles of previous epochs. Whereas with Saint-Saëns it is traced by the general stylistics of the work: clarity and simplicity of the form, alongside with a sparkling brilliance of the Classicism and the early Romanticism. In contrary, with Taneyev's opus it is presented in a truly virtuosic use of contrapuntal elements, where the composer's absolute mastery in the Art of Polyphony is shown through the extensive use of highly complex multilayered Fugal passages.

There is another reason why we have selected these particular quartets for the album: a revival of the forgotten, yet outstanding works, written for such a specific formation. For various reasons the "stage life" of these quartets was not as successful as the ones composed by Mozart, Brahms or Dvorák, even being close to falling into an obscurity. One of the ensemble's main goals is to search, find and eventually perform the unknown or rarely heard works, and we sincerely hope that with this recording listeners will turn their utmost attention towards these masterpieces.

We are certain that these quartets are not only as good as the more frequently performed works by Brahms, Dvorák or Fauré, but in many ways surpass them in freshness, brilliance and originality." - Georgy Voylochnikov

Malevich Ensemble

The Malevich Ensemble
(formerly Malevich Piano Quartet, together with pianist Sofia Raychenko) was founded in 2015 in a chamber music class of Prof. Henk Guittart (Schoenberg String Quartet, artistic director of the Orlando Festival) at the Conservatorium Maastricht.

After only a few months of existence, the quartet was awarded a special prize and a concert tour in France at the Chamber Music Festival and Competition at the Conservatorium Maastricht in March 2016. In 2017, the ensemble became a laureate of the Storioni Festivaland Competition and recorded the Piano Quartet (1938) by Oscar van Hemel (1892-1981) for the first time at the Orlando Chamber Music Festival in Kerkrade (Netherlands) (Etcetera Records label).In November 2017, the Malevich Piano Quartet won the 1st prize and the Gnessin Art Prize at the Taneyev Chamber Music Competition (Moscow-Kaluga, Russia).

In the early years, Malevich Piano Quartet was a participant of many prestigious festivals such as "Pianoscope", "Clef de la Cite", "Piano Prestige" and others. In 2019, the Malevich Piano Quartet became a member of the chamber music class of Prof. A. Spiri and Prof. H. Schoneweg at theHochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. This year, the quartet was a prizewinner at the 7th Chamber Music Competition in Cologne. In August 2019, aLive premiere of the 2 Piano Quartets (1959; 1968) by Hans Kox (1930-2019) was recorded as part of the Orlando Festival concerts(Orlando CD production, Etcetera Records), and the ensemble was selected to represent the OrlandoFestival as part of a Dutch concert tour in 2020-2021,with concerts at venues such as Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Theater Heerlen, MuziekHavenZaandam and De Nieuwe Kerk Den Haag.

In June 2021, the Malevich Piano Quartet changed its ideology and name to become a more flexible group.

Pianist Georgy Voylochnikov joined a new formation of the Malevich Ensemble that year.

The ensemble took part in master classes with such renowned musicians as Jean-Bernard Pommier,Storioni Trio, Sam Haywood, RusQuartet, Osiris Trio, Sigiswald Kuijken, Shunske Sato and Alexander Zemtsov.

This album contains no booklet.