The string quartet Quatuor Diotima fascinated in the Brucknerhaus

A fascinating chamber music concert could be experienced on Friday in the Brucknerhaus with the French Quatuor Diotima, who takes his name from Luigi Nono’s 1979/80 string quartet “Fragmente – Stille, An Diotima” and showed a very special affinity to this music. Because Nono’s work is a matter of fragments, which at first glance seem like fragments of a whole that does not belong together. Short actions that hardly break the silence and are reminiscent of entries in a sketchbook. It is precisely here that the quality of an ensemble like the Quatuor Diotima is decisive. Because music is played with such intensity, deeply penetrating the cosmos, that the 35-minute motivic “patchwork rug” becomes a stringent, compelling work.

Outstanding musicians

In the first part, the pieces that served as models were heard: the chanson “Malheur me bat” – possibly by Johannes Ockeghem -, Giuseppe Verdi’s “Ave Maria” and the 3rd movement from Beethoven’s A minor quartet, op. 132.

The music by Oscar Jockel connecting those role models was premiered. “Like white fruits of a tree of time” for string quartet and electronics skilfully and fascinatingly combines these sounds “from other spaces, from other heavens”: electronic sounds as a necessity that led to the intensive interaction of the strings with the digitally generated sounds.

Here, too, Oscar Jockel proved to be an ingeniously creative organizer of both worlds. In order to raise such ideas to a climax, outstanding musicians are required, such as Yun-Peng Zhao and Léo Marillier (violins), Franck Chevalier (viola) and Pierre Morlet (violoncello) and made their ensemble name “Diotima” the program have.

Conclusion: An absolutely extraordinary evening of chamber music with a sensational premiere.