Hyacinthe Jadin • String Quartets; Op. 1

Description

The Quatuor Franz Joseph invites listeners to discover the three string quartets, opus 1, by Hyacinthe Jadin, a French composer who is little known today. Born in 1776 in Versailles to a musical family, he was on the brink of a promising career when he died of tuberculosis, in September of 1800 at the age of 24.For his quartets, Jadin used the four-movement structure he had inherited from Haydn. Stylistically, they anticipate the great contrapuntal developments of the 19th century. Tinged with a pre-Romantic aesthetic, they are a French version of the Sturm und Drang movement which heralded the world of Schubert.

The Quatuor Franz Joseph was created in 2002 by four enthusiastic and leading early-music string players from Montrea. These musicians seek to quench their thirst for the quartet repertoire of the Enlightenment using period instruments, while nourishing an interest for parallel repertoires.