Schoenebeck. “Now you’re going to hear something weird,” Barbara Linke-Holicka warned the cheerful audience when she announced Schulhoff’s five pieces for string quartet. The “Übersee Quartet Bremen” was a guest in the well-attended Great Hall of Schönebeck Castle. Claudia Schmid-Heise and Zuzana Schmitz-Kulanova on violin, Barbara Linke-Holicka on viola and Benjamin Stiehl on violoncello dedicated themselves to Prague composers, Antonin Dvo?ák, Joseph Haydn and Erwin Schulhoff. The composer was born in Prague in 1894, the son of a Jewish wool merchant. He died of tuberculosis in a Bavarian concentration camp in 1942.
The five Schulhoff pieces were composed as a whole in the 1920s. But they could also be understood as a multi-layered sound collage. Gloomy sounds alternated with tender tones. There are always surprising twists and turns. The finale could evoke the idea of sitting in a rattling train that suddenly slows down, regains momentum and finally comes to an abrupt stop.
The artists opened the concert with the String Quartet in D Major, Opus 20, Number 4 by Joseph Haydn. It is one of the composer’s six so-called sun quartets. Haydn is the “father of the string quartets”, said Barbara Linke-Holicka. He enjoyed playing it himself. “These weren’t commissioned works.”
With Dvo?ák, the musicians had decided on his String Quartet in A flat major, Opus 105. Barbara Linke-Holicka pointed out that the composer had spent “three successful years” in the USA. In 1895 he returned to his Czech homeland from New York. According to Barbara Linke-Holicka, the string quartet in A flat major is shaped by the farewell to the USA and the joyful reunion with home. Accordingly, the composer also suffered from homesickness.
He had begun the A flat major string quartet in New York, but only continued writing it after his return to Bohemia in December 1895. As an encore, the quartet delighted the audience with a barcarole by Josef Suk, Dvo?ák’s son-in-law. The hall of the castle with its inventory such as chandeliers, paintings from seafaring and nature, exhibited porcelain, grandfather clock and the bust of the banker and Vulkan co-founder Bernhard Loose offered a beautiful ambience.
Claudia Schmid-Heise studied in Stockholm, Cologne and Mannheim. According to her own statement, in addition to studying the violin, she was particularly influenced and inspired by the lessons with the Amadeus Quartet and the Alban Berg Quartet. She was a member of the Rubin Quartet, concertmaster in the Cologne Chamber Orchestra and has been concertmaster in the Oldenburg State Orchestra since 2009.
Zuzana Schmitz-Kulanova grew up in Slovakia. She studied violin in Lucerne and Essen, was concertmaster in the Folkwang Chamber Orchestra and the Cologne Chamber Orchestra. She has been a member of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen since 2018.
The violist Barbara Linke-Holicka comes from Prague. She completed her music studies in Prague, Berlin and in Freiburg in Breisgau. She gained experience in various orchestras such as the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Staatstheater Mannheim, Czech Philharmonic, Zurich Opera House and Tonhalle and Lucerne Festival Orchestra. She has also worked with the Artemis Quartet, Talich Quartet and Vlach Quartet. Since 2008, Barbara Linke-Holicka has been living as a freelance chamber musician with her family in Bremen.
Benjamin Stiehl studied in his hometown of Leipzig with Professor Wolfgang Weber and completed his concert exam with Professor Peter Hörr. He gained valuable experience as a substitute in the German Music School Orchestra and in the Gewandhaus Orchestra. He has been a cellist with the Bremen Philharmonic since 2004.
