Programme
Beethoven's Piano Quartets, versus... (I)
Soloists of the Metropolitana
L. v. Beethoven Piano Quartet No. 1, WoO 36
M. Reger Piano Quartet No. 1, Op. 113
Alexêi Tolpygo and Alexandre Delgado (violin)
Guenrikh Elessine (cello)
Alexei Eremine (piano),
Soloists of the Moscow Piano Quartet
ISEG's
MOSCOW PIANO QUARTET (Moscow Piano Quartet, MPQ) was created in 1989 on the initiative of Alexei Eremine and Guenrikh Elessine. Its first concert took place on January 25, 1990 at the Iermolova House-Museum in Moscow. In the same city, he performed at the "Dekabravski Vetcherá" ("December Nights") Festival, directed by Sviatoslav Richter. The influence of the great master Valentin Berlinski (cellist of the Borodine Quartet) is noteworthy, especially in terms of careful tuning, richness of sound and deep knowledge of the works played. Invited by the most diverse music festivals, the group toured Latvia, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Benelux and Japan. In 1993 the MPQ became the "Resident Quartet" of Cascais, having signed a protocol with this municipality that ensures the realization of annual seasons of ten concerts in the Auditorium of the Cultural Center of Cascais. Among the artists with whom the group has collaborated are Augustin Dumay, the Borodine Quartet, Natália Gutman, Mikhail Schmidt, Claudio Arimani, Elizabeth Keusch, António Rosado, António Saiote and Nuno Inácio, among many others. The MPQ has been fulfilling its main objective, that of disseminating all the works written for violin, viola, cello and piano, from the classical period to the present day, including the lesser-known ones. In the wake of his interest in contemporary music, he contacts whenever possible the composers of the works he studies, in particular Alfred Schnittke (whose piano quartet he performed at a concert in homage to this composer in Moscow) and Fernando Lopes-Graça. He has already performed more than a dozen works at first hearing, some of which were dedicated to him, such as Lugares Esquecidos by Luís Tinoco (1998), Suite Atlântica by Eurico Carrapatoso (2000), Quarteto com Piano by Patrício da Silva (2004) and Canteto by Alexandre Delgado (2007). In addition to several premieres in Portugal, he gave the modern premiere of the Piano Quartet in D major by Domingos Bomtempo. After a first CD, dedicated to Mahler, Schnittke and Brahms, the MPQ released in 2012 a new CD with the first world recording of the piano quartets by Anton Rubinstein and Eduard Napravnik. In 2001, the group received the "Medal of Cultural Merit of the Municipality of Cascais" from the Cascais City Council.
Alexei Eremine (piano) was born in Moscow in 1964. He began his piano studies at the age of 6 at the Gnessin Music School and finished the Higher Course at the Gnessin Pedagogical Institute with Alexander Satz (Piano) and Valeri Samoliotov and Irina Anastasieva (Chamber Music). With the Gnessin Trio, which he formed at that time, he toured various cities in the Soviet Union. In 1990 he participated with M. Argerich, A. Rabinovitch and A. Batagov in a CD with music by A. Rabinovitch, awarded a Diapason d'Or. He is a founding member of the Moscow Piano Quartet (MPQ), the first formation of its kind in Russia. He was co-artistic director of the Castelo Branco Festival and has performed with musicians such as N. Gutman, M. Berlinskaia, V. Samoliotov and M. Jerónimo. In 1998 he organized in Porto the concert for seven pianos that brought together Pedro Burmester, António Rosado, Luis Miguel Borges Coelho, Fausto Neves, Jaime Mota and Luis Filipe Sá, performing a work by Vladimir Martinov in a world premiere and works by Steve Reich and Morton Feldman, in a performance recorded on CD by the BMG label. He was a teacher at the Gnessin Institute and at the Professional School of Arcos do Estoril, currently teaching at the National Superior Academy of Orchestra.
Alexei Tolpygo (violin) was born in Moscow in 1965 into a family of musicians and started playing the violin at the age of 5. In 1971 he entered the Gnessin Special Music School. In 1979 he won the international competition "Concertino-Praha 79" in Czechoslovakia. In 1983 he finished the Special Music School in Gnessin and entered the Higher Institute of Music and Pedagogy in the same city, where he obtained a Master's Degree in 1990, having also studied the quartet discipline with Professor Valentin Berlinski, cellist of the legendary Borodin Quartet. In 1987 he joined the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, and at the same time was invited to collaborate with the orchestras "Soviet Festival Orchestra" and "State Chamber Orchestra", with which he performed in more than 30 countries. In 1991 he was invited by his colleagues at the Institute to join the Moscow Piano Quartet, which in 1993 became a resident quartet in Cascais and with which he performed many concerts in Portugal and abroad. Since 1996 he has been a violinist with the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra. Within the framework of this formation's project, he has performed numerous concerts both solo and in chamber music, also collaborating with the National Orchestra of Porto, the Utopian Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra and the Brahms-Trio of Moscow.
Alexandre Delgado (violet) was born in Lisbon in 1965. He studied at the Musical Foundation of the Friends of Children and was a composition student of Joly Braga Santos and Jacques Charpentier, graduating with the 1st Composition Prize from the Nice Conservatory in 1990. Among an abundant instrumental and vocal production, he is the author of the operas O Doido e a Morte (whose premiere he directed at São Carlos in 1994 and in Berlin in 1996) and A Rainha Louca (whose premiere he directed at CCB in July 2011). He has premiered his Concerto for viola and orchestra as soloist in Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands. His most recent works include the cycle Cinco Sonetos Quinhentistas (premiered by soprano Maria Bayo in 2011), Tríptico Camoniano and Verdiana for orchestra (2013). A viola student of Barbara Friedhoff, he won the Young Musicians Prize in 1987 and was a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra and the Gulbenkian Orchestra. He hosted the program A Propósito da Música on Antena 2 between 1996 and 2013. He is the author of the books A Sinfonia em Portugal, A Culpa é do Maestro (music criticism) and Luís de Freitas Branco. Director of the Alcobaça Music Festival since 2002, he has been a member of the Moscow Piano Quartet since 2005 and freelances as an instrumentalist, conductor, libretto translator and concert commentator.
Guenrikh Elessine (cello) began his musical and cello studies in Moscow at the age of 6. In 1985 he completed his Master's degree at the Musical and Pedagogical Institute of Gnessin, where he was invited to teach Quartet and Chamber Music classes and where he worked until his arrival in Portugal in 1991. He won the 2nd Prize in the Cello Competition of the Russian Federation in 1985 and the 3rd Prize in the String Quartet Competition of the U.R.S.S. in 1987. He was a member of the Gossteleradio Quartet (of the State Radio and Television of the Russian Federation) between 1987 and 1989, having made numerous recordings with it for the radio and television archives, some of which were later released on CD. He performed in more than 150 concerts throughout the Soviet Union, India, Algeria and Italy. In 1989 he founded the Moscow Piano Quartet, with which he has performed concerts throughout Russia, Europe, Macao and Japan. Throughout his career he has performed on stage with renowned artists such as the Borodine Quartet, Natalia Gutman, Naum Starkman, Dmitri Alekseev, António Saiote, among many others. He worked closely with the composer Alfred Schnittke, being one of the first performers of his 3rd String Quartet and Piano Quartet. He has been co-artistic director of the Castelo Branco International Music Festival since its first edition.