vision string quartet: In The Fields

Five years after their last release, the vision string quartet makes an impressive return with their ACT debut "in the fields". The album is a manifesto for the versatility of the string quartet and a statement of musical curiosity. The Berlin formation, consisting of Florian Willeitner (violin), Daniel Stoll (violin), Sander Stuart (viola) and Leonard Disselhorst (cello), has established itself in recent years as the "string quartet of the future" (The Sydney Morning Herald) and is known for its border crossings between classical music, folk, jazz and its own compositions. For ACT, the collaboration with the quartet is an expansion of its already broad musical spectrum. ACT director Andreas Brandis: "Our shared history began with the Concerto.21 masterclasses that I led and continued in close collaboration with their violinist Florian Willeitner. In the future, ACT will be even more open to connections between classical music, contemporary music and improvisation - and the vision string quartet is a brilliant representative of this approach." The vision string quartet acts less like a classical string quartet and more like a band: the four musicians always play standing up, mastering their repertoire by heart and without sheet music. "For us, this means maximum freedom and liveliness," explains Florian Willeitner. And the visions are open to new ideas in other ways too: concerts in the dark and cross-genre collaborations with artists such as Fatma Said, Gabriel Kahane and Golnar Shahyar have always demonstrated the quartet's versatility. The dramaturgical arc of "in the fields" is based on Béla Bartók's five-movement 4th String Quartet, which runs through the album as a common thread. "We were infected by Bartók's fascination with the unknown," the musicians write in the liner notes. Bartók's movements are not only interpreted classically, but also given a "percussive dimension" together with Austrian percussionist Bernhard Schimpelsberger. The album's opening piece, the Bulgarian folk song "Kopanitsa", also sounds in the same spirit, setting the tone with its rhythmic fire in 11/8 time. Maurice Ravel's String Quartet in F major, an evergreen of the quartet repertoire, provides a classical source of inspiration. Florian Willeitner and Sweden's piano shooting star Joel Lyssarides open the door to a new, post-impressionistic world of sound with "Ravel Reloaded". Lyssarides also introduces a further, very personal facet with his arrangement of "Grimasch om morgonen" by Swedish-Dutch singer-songwriter Cornelis Vreeswijk. Together with Joel Lyssarides and Iranian-born guitarist Mahan Mirarab, the vision string quartet has also developed and recorded several original compositions. "Lydian Rose" celebrates the colorfulness of the Lydian mode, "Raindance" lets plucked melodies dance in the rain, "Convalescence" unleashes a wild ride between poetic gentleness and breakneck drive, and the folksong-like "Skymning" forms the album's gentle conclusion. It is well worth listening to "in the fields" from start to finish in the order in which it was intended. With the diversity of the musical material, the vision string quartet tells a story that is full of twists and turns and always surprising - and proves once again how lively, curious and boundless a string quartet of the 21st century can be.