Bourgie Hall presents

Debussy Quartet – Muses

In thirty years of activity, the Debussy String Quartet has been acclaimed throughout the world, continually sharing the same passion in its musical interpretations on the world’s most prestigious stages: Japan, China, United States, Canada, Australia, Russia, Europe, gaining renown through regular tours on all the continents. Thirty years of evolution which have made the Quartet a key player on the international music scene, with numerous awards, including a First Prize in the Evian International String Quartet Competition in 1993 and a Victoire de la musique 1996 (“Best Chamber Music Group”). Today, the professional recognition of the Debussy String Quartet is indisputable.

“What’s behind a masterpiece? Whether pictorial or musical, it is difficult for the artist to find inspiration without being able to put his finger on the figures, however subtle and fragile they may be, that give birth to creation, nor to succeed in observing these muses without whom nothing would be possible. “

This program offers us a plunge into the work of four Eastern European composers who, each in their own way, raise the mythological and contemporary figure of the Muse; whose influences are so striking that they have inspired, fascinated and almost shaped the work and aesthetics of these four luminaries: Borodin, Shostakovich, Janácek and Gorecki. Through the original feelings of love, absence, jealousy and hatred, this show is constructed as an intimate journey, at the heart of the emotions. Borodine will take us into the passion of love; through an intimate musical thought of a work composed for his wife while returning from a long journey.

It is with Shostakovich that this program will make the pain of absence; his work written as “A Tomb to Nina” will bring us a dark atmosphere of macabre, of fatality… A journey to the heart of passions, led, drum beating, especially with the palette of emotions exposed by Janácek, from the amorous complaint to the scream. Composed as a reaction to Tolstoy’s short story, The Kreutzer Sonata, the composer depicts the horror of jealousy, a symbol of devastating marital passion. Finally, the choice to invoke Gorecki’s work is not without recalling, in fine, all the ambivalence of feelings that only human beings are capable of experiencing. The Debussy String Quartet was then given the challenge of making all this emotional power navigable.

Artists
Christophe Collette, violin
Emmanuel Bernard, violin
Vincent Deprecq, viola
Cédric Conchon, cello

Program
BORODIN String Quartet No. 2 in D major (excerpts)
JANÁCEK String Quartet No. 1, “Kreutzer Sonata”
GÓRECKI String Quartet No. 1, Op. 62,  “Already it is Dusk”
SHOSTAKOVICH Elegy (from an aria in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk)
String Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp minor, Op. 108

Saturday, October 22, 2022 at 8:00pm
To purchase your tickets visit: www.mbam.qc.ca/en/bourgie-hall/