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Programme:
Maurice Ravel: String Quartet in F major
Karol Szymanowski: Nocturne und Tarantella, op.28 (arr. Myroslav Skoryk)
INTERVAL
Myroslav Skoryk: Diptych for string quartet
Ernst von Dohnányi: Piano Quintet in C minor, op.1
Performed by:
Balázs Fülei (piano)
Karol Szymanowski Quartet: Agata Szymczewska, Robert Kowalski (violin), Volodia Mykytka (viola), Karol Marianowski (cello)
When Ravel was 28, at the end of his studies at the Conservatoire in Paris, he was trying to win the Prix de Rome for the umpteenth time. His first (and only) string quartet was not successful, but that does not detract from the value of the piece: one of Ravel's earliest masterpieces, it already shows the composer's astonishing sense of timbre. Szymanowski's Nocturne and Tarantella was originally scored for violin and piano, later orchestrated for orchestra, and now available in a transcription for string quartet. The transcription was created by Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk, who also includes one of his own works, Diptych. The opening Lamento is extremely melodic, with some of its turns reminiscent of Albinoni's Adagio or Puccini's Crisantemi, while Perpetuum mobile, as its title suggests, is unstoppable in its movement and drifting momentum. The final piece in the programme is again a youthful piece. At 17, Dohnányi composed the Piano Quintet in C minor, which Brahms said he could not have written better himself. It is characterised by a classically perfect dramaturgy and proportions, yet it captivates the listener with its naturalness and romantic fervour. Celebrated guests of Carnegie Hall in New York and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Szymanowski Quartet will make its first home debut at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music as part of the Carpathian Classical Music Festival. The Liszt Prize-winning pianist Balázs Fülei joins the ensemble for the Dohnányi work.
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 Balázs FÜLEI is a Franz Liszt, Artisjus and Junior Prima award winner pianist and Steinway Artist with more than thirty piano concertos in his repertoire, with all the concertos by Beethoven, Brahms and Bartók among them. He is an assistant professor at the Liszt Academy and has been the Head of the Department of Chamber Music since 2015. He is the founder and artistic director of the Echo Summer Academy held every year in the Károlyi Castle in Fehérvárcsurgó.
Balázs has also created a new genre thanks to his excellent lecturing, communicating and verbal skills. At least in Hungary, as the tradition of so-called “storytelling” concerts in America dates back several decades and is linked to Leonard Bernstein. His abilities got noticed by the Bartók Radio, too: since September 2020, every second week, he has been the host of a radio programme called Quartet, which is very popular.
The artist is connected to Bartók in many ways: as one of the busiest performers of the 2016 Memorial Year, he gave many concerts in Hungary and abroad. In Bangalore, India, he has given a lecture on Bartók and folk music to an audience of two thousand people; in Vietnam he was the first performer to play Bartók’s pieces. He has entered the international music scene at an early age. He had his debut solo recital in 2008 at the Carnegie Hall in New York considered the most prestigious concert hall in the world; he has given concerts in the Konzerthaus Vienna, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory Moscow, the Kioi Hall Tokio and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam as well. He has played together with leading symphony orchestras in Hungary and abroad. Balázs Fülei has already performed in almost every country in Europe, Israel, the United States of America, Australia, Japan, China and Vietnam. He has regularly been giving concerts with his permanent formation, the Auer Trio; he has been a frequent partner of the Kodály Quartet and have toured with them in India. He was the soloist of one of the world’s leading ensembles, the Camerata Bern, in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy.
He has recorded four solo albums: in 2013, the works of Bartók and Grieg; in 2015, pieces by Brahms, Beethoven, Debussy and András Gábor Virágh’s compositions connected to the Moon theme. In 2019, he recorded the penultimate sonatas by Beethoven and Schubert, and released a Liszt album. The first CD recorded with the Auer Trio was published in 2019. In 2022 further four new albums are to be released.
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 Agata Szymczewska, Robert Kowalski, Volodia Mykytka, Karol Marianowski.
Ever since its founding in Warsaw in 1995, the Karol Szymanowski Quartet has beencharacterised by a constant search for new inspiration and an openness to the unpredictable; and great musicians have contributed their voices to the sound of the renowned ensemble. To this day, its members are united by an extraordinary common understanding of music, a shared basic inspiration grounded in a commitment to Polish music and the Polish composer, Karol Szymanowski. His music, with ist immense freedom and infinite possibilities of expression, still exercises a strong power of identification on the ensemble even after 25 years.
The Karol Szymanowski Quartet began its chamber music education at the Hanover University of Music and Performing Arts with Hatto Beyerle. Eberhard Feltz, Walter Levin, Isaak Stern, Bernard Greenhouse, Alfred Brendel, Seiji Ozawa, Friedemann Weigle, as well as members of the Amadeus, Emerson, Juilliard and Guarneri Quartets were other important mentors. Numerous prizes and awards followed, for example at competitions in Weimar, Hannover, Melbourne, Osaka and Florence. Beginning in 2001, the quartet benefitted from a three year membership of the BBC’s “New Generation Artists Scheme“. The Karol Szymanowski Quartet has received great recognition for ist exploration of Alban Berg’s music and for the first performance of works dedicated to the quartet. But it was above all as ambassadors of Szymanowski’s string quartets and the music of Polish and Eastern European composers, including Witold Lutosławski, Sofia Gubaidulina, Mieczysław Weinberg and Krzysztof Penderecki - with whom the quartet had a close working relationship - that enabled it to enter the top rank of the international music scene over the next few years; a commitment that was honoured in 2005 with the renowned “Szymanowski Prize“ and in 2007 with the Polish Medal of Honour. The Karol Szymanowski Quartet is primarily concerned with the search for connection and exchange beyond epochs and national borders. On this understanding, the musicians devise exciting concert programmes with great enthusiasm and experience, which are highly praised by critics and audiences alike. This approach is also reflected in the Karol Szymanowski Quartet’s exciting discography, which includes works by Haydn, Dvořák and Shostakovich, as well as numerous rarely recorded compositions by Bacewicz, Zelenski, Zarebski, Friedman, Weinberg and Rózycki. However, the ensemble’s close connection to its audience is created above all in the numerous live concerts it performs around the globe. The quartet has been a guest at renowned concert halls such as New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Vienna Musikverein, the Berlin Konzerthaus and the Shanghai Symphony Hall and has performed at the international festivals in the Rheingau, Schleswig-Holstein, Schubertiade, BBC Proms and Lockenhaus as well as concert series in Los Angeles, Paris, London, Warsaw, Moscow, Cheltenham, Basel and Perth. In every concert, the quartet shows itself to be open to the unexpected and the unpredictable, to new impulses and thoughts. And so, a uniquely intimate atmosphere is always created that inspires audiences worldwide and has carried the Karol Szymanowski Quartet through every renewal and change for 25 years.
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