Photos: Alain Lefort / Michael Slobodian
Nadia Francavilla, Stéphanie Bozzini, Clemens Merkel and Malcolm Goldstein during the recording of Portrait Montréal, Centre d’arts Orford (QC), September 2003

Reviews >

What The Press Says…
On Stage

“Das Quatuor Bozzini ist ein wundervolles Ensemble für Aussagen durch und über zeitgenössische Kompositionen… Das Quatuor setzt eine leise, ruhig präzise, überlegte und hoch spannende Argumentation gegen eine verlärmte Welt.”

Concert (May 12, 2010) in Nordwest-Zeitung (Germany), May 2010

“… bewundernswert war die eiserne Disziplin mit der das Quatuor Bozzini die scheinbar endlosen Klangflächen fest und stabil hielt…”

MaerzMusik Festival (Mar 28, 2009) in Klassik.com (Germany), March 2009

“… davantage de satisfactions: Un concert du Quatuor Bozzini, impliqué dans une Trance du compositeur canadien Paul Frehner, et précis dans le 3e quatuor de René Koering, mais qui régale surtout par la Grande Fugue de Beethoven — une véritable fontaine de jouvence et de modernité — et par un somptueux quatuor du compositeur québécois Walter Boudreau…”

Les figures du siècle (Mar 15, 2009, Mar 22, 2009) in altamusica.com (France), March 2009

“L’intégrale des Quatuors à cordes de John Cage, […] traversé avec conviction par notre prodigieux Bozzini.”

John Cage: les quatuors à cordes (Feb 9, 2008) in La Presse (Québec), December 2008

“The great discovery of the festival was James Tenney, […] in a series of three concerts by the enterprising and gifted Canadian string quartet Quatuor Bozzini.”

HCMF: James Tenney 1 — In a Large, Open Space (Nov 24, 2008), HCMF: James Tenney 2 — Arbor Vitæ (Nov 25, 2008), HCMF: James Tenney 3 — Koan (Nov 26, 2008) in The Observer (UK), December 2008

“One must congratulate the Quatuor Bozzini on their total commitment to exploring the world of new music on our behalf. It may be many years before concerts like these become less of a puzzle and more of a treat. So be it, and more power to the Bozzini.”

Ottawa Chamber Music Festival (Aug 5, 2008) in Showtimemagazine.ca (Canada), August 2008

Bozzini’s all-Cage evening does its magic. McGill’s Tanna Schulich Hall — an ideal room for this kind of concert — was near full, and the audience was breathtakingly silent. This was Cage lovingly played and received.”

John Cage: les quatuors à cordes (Feb 9, 2008) in The Gazette (Québec), February 2008

“L’exploit — car c’en fut un — avait attiré 125 personnes.”

John Cage: les quatuors à cordes (Feb 9, 2008) in La Presse (Québec), February 2008

“The way the world looks today, maybe it’s not so strange that artists in all genres are responding by lifting forth the most clean sense of beauty. Evil does not let itself be fought with something equally crooked, with power or violence, when life itself is in danger. This is how I experience the singularly skilled and brave Canadian Quatuor Bozzini’s choice of expression free from all outward ornamentation to reach the musical core… The musicians made a grand performance… The people of Boras have had the chance to hear one of the most meaningful and finally most successful art-esthetical experiments we know of.”

Ny Musik Borås (Oct 8, 2007), Borås Tidning / Ny Musik Borås (Oct 10, 2007) in Boras Tidning (Sweden), November 2007

“The Quatuor Bozzini convey the authority of their understanding of the music and their enthusiasm for it.”

Music Toronto (Nov 1, 2007) in Showtimemagazine.ca (Canada), November 2007

“Le Bozzini a choisi ce répertoire… il le défend avec un zèle qui force l’admiration.”

New Simplicity (Oct 20, 2007) in La Presse (Québec), October 2007

“… Arbor Vitae is Tenney’s last composition, commissioned by Montreal’s Quatuor Bozzini, who played it with intense musicality and immense sensitivity…”

James Tenney Festival (Dec 10, 2006) in Musicworks #97 (Canada), March 2007

“… it bordered on the sublime.”

Rikskonserter / Ny Musik Borås (Feb 7, 2007) in Boras Tidning (Sweden), February 2007

“[in Brahms’ Quartet in B Flat Major opus 67] the quartet succeeded remarkably well in bringing out the transparency of sound and to let the melodic material move freely between the four voices… Warm applause will follow the musicians on their eight concerts tour.”

Rikskonserter (Jan 29, 2007) in Uppsala Nya Tidning (Sweden), January 2007

“There were also some overwhelming moments. One of them was the string quartet Gradients of Detail by the Berlin-based Canadian Chiyoko Szlavnics, performed by the outstanding Bozzini Quartet from Quebec, who successfully realised the rather simple glissando-processes as free flowing moments musicaux… A twenty-minute enigma for the ears, one which never allowed our attention to slacken.”

Berliner Festspiele: MaerzMusik (Mar 18, 2006) in Positionen #66 (Germany), May 2006

“…(les 3 œuvres) reçurent des exécutions absolument magistrales de la part du Bozzini…”

La Quadrature du cercle (Jan 17, 2006) in La Presse (Québec), January 2006

“Ces compositeurs ont une chance extrême de pouvoir compter sur un quatuor aussi impliqué, sûr et imaginatif que le Quatuor Bozzini, qui évolue au top-niveau international en la matière.”

La Quadrature du cercle (Jan 17, 2006) in Le Devoir (Québec), January 2006

“The Bozzini Quartet presented a fabulous concert…”

Montréal / Nouvelles Musiques 2005: Quatuor Bozzini (Mar 5, 2005) in Musicworks #92 (Canada), June 2005

“In a carreer-spanning concert featuring the Bozzini Quartet, Tenney’s specialists, the composer’s ideas are engagingly performed…”

James Tenney: 70 ans (Nov 11, 2004) in Los Angeles Times (USA), November 2004

“It is close to impossible to catch in words the feeling of this weekend’s four concerts with New Music. It is necessary to start in the right place, with the musicians. Canadian-German Bozzini Quartet is the one quartet in the whole world that I prefer to hear… Clean colours and clean interpretations lift the qualities in the music which are subtle, yet incredibly artistically important.”

NY Musik: Quintets (Oct 3, 2004), NY Musik: Christian Wolff — The Complete String Quartets (Oct 2, 2004), NY Musik: Canons and Counterpoints (Oct 1, 2004) in Boras Tidning (Sweden), November 2004

“… and the phenomenal Bozzini Quartet from Canada is leading us into the mountains. The end of [Charles Ives] second quartet is named “Call of the Mountains”. Here the music reaches its limits…”

Maerzmusik — Berliner Festspiele (Mar 21, 2004) in Die Zeit (Germany), April 2004

“… souple dans son rendu de texte, le Bozzini, fait ressortir un lyrisme personel… On va aller le revoir en concert pour partager avec lui le mûrissement qu’il apportera à cet art.”

Concert de saison II: Hiver (Jan 15, 2004) in Le Devoir (Québec), January 2004

“Here we have a dream quartet among the string quartets of the world, the Canadian Bozzini Quartet from Montreal… The overtone rich sound that the four musicians supplied in the final number, James Tenney’s Koan, became one of my most sacred moments… The young performers Clemens Merkel and Nadia Francavilla, violin, and Stephanie and Isabelle Bozzini, viola and cello, were like a vision… Played with this etching clarity, brightness and yet cool restraint, (Beethoven’s late quartets) would be an experience we can still only dream of.”

Concert (Dec 9, 2003) in Boras Tidning (Sweden), December 2003

“… with this group performing, (Koan from James Tenney) will likely feel like the heavens opening… What a gift we received with (Jurg Frey’s) second quartet… And what glowing playing!”

Concert (Dec 9, 2003) in Boras Tidning (Sweden), December 2003

“… visiting Bozzini Quartet, from Canada, took an approach to Glass’ Mishima that unshackled the music… [from] the Bozzini’s performance of James Tenney’s Koan, there was a lot to be learned in the journey…It was the great irony of the program that, in a festival mounted by an ensemble exploring new media, the greatest musical rewards came from string quartets…”

Crash Festival (Dec 4, 2003) in The Irish Times (Ireland), December 2003

“… cette formation, tranquillement, est en train de s’imposer comme lieu ardent de la musique vivante ici. Après la qualité de ce qu’il a présenté qui n’a d’égale que celle dont ces instrumentistes jouent, les deux prochaines années au TLC s’annoncent provocatrices de tournants dans le paysage musical de qui n’a froid ni au yeux, ni aux oreilles.”

Événement «Wandelweiser» II (Sep 12, 2003) in Le Devoir (Québec), September 2003

“… lors de l’écoute, l’oreille s’émerveille de se sentir si intimement transportée.”

Festival international du Domaine Forget (Aug 27, 2003) in Le Devoir (Québec), August 2003

“Quatuor Bozzini brought the 47th annual Slee Beethoven Cycle to a graceful close. The Bozzini is a likable group. The musicians… perform without flash or fanfare… Francavilla was touching in the way she enunciated the beautiful, romantic main theme, without much vibrato, with a hint of a scratch in her sound… the slow movement (of the second “Razumovsky” Quartet) showed a taut togetherness.”

Concert (May 30, 2003), June in Buffalo Festival (May 31, 2003) in The Buffalo News (USA), June 2003

“The quartet sound was very beautiful and homogenous, always aiming for transparency. Especially in the early c minor quartet op. 18 n.4 with its tempestuous outside movements the Bozzini Quartet could joyfully romp about and have all the youthful energy of this piece burst out… The final movement (of Beethoven op. 59-2) became a real “bouncer”… (in Beethoven’s quartet op. 135) the Bozzini Quartet showed capricious humour in the Scherzo and impetuous- fierce eruptions in the finale.”

Concert (May 10, 2003) in Rheinische Post (Germany), May 2003

“… le Bozzini a gardé toute sa transcendance pour la très difficile pièce de Luigi Nono… La grâce y trouve peu à peu son chemin par les quatre interprètes penchés sur leur ouvrage. À tous, bravissimi!”

Festival Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques (Mar 11, 2003) in La Presse (Québec), March 2003

“The Bozzini Sting Quartet from Canada offered a programme which juxtaposed Wolff’s Exercises out of Songs and Gerald Barry’s 1998. This was an inspired bit of programming, presenting the work of composers whose refractions of their chosen material produced some momentarily similar gestural outcomes. 1998 is possibly Barry’s most rigorously unyelding composition.”

Contemporary Music Festival (Nov 25, 2002) in The Irish Times (Ireland), December 2002

“With the Bozzini Quartet’s assured performance of Christian Wolff’s 1974-6 ‘Exercises Out of Songs’, a patchwork quilt of rhythmic variations on folk themes from a wide range of quasi-political sources, the Old Masters of modern music were painting patterns of a complexity and technical mastery to put their disciples to shame.”

Contemporary Music Festival (Nov 25, 2002) in The Observer (UK), December 2002

“The Bozzini String Quartet is one of those groups which gets its teeth into music. Quiet or loud, fast or slow, these Canadian musicians play with compelling engagement.”

Mostly Modern Series (Nov 28, 2002) in The Irish Times (Ireland), November 2002

“The players’ individual intelligences, combined with their well-honed interactive abilities, provided a synergy that elevated each moment of the performance to a “truest possible” experience of music.”

Concert (May 2, 2002) in Musicworks (Canada), September 2002

“… le Bozzini apporte une jeune et stimulante fraîcheur d’accent à Beethoven, en plus de bien suivre le texte, y compris les reprises et le retour du menuet ‘un peu plus rapide’, tel qu’indiqué.”

Festival de Lanaudière (Jul 1, 2002) in La Presse (Québec), July 2002

“L’exécution fut précise, le solo de Clemens Merkel convaincant… L’entrée en matière est furieuse… Les dynamiques surprennent et, de fff à ppp, permettent aux interprètes de briller là aussi. Le Quatuor no 3 de Wolfgang Rihm a permis aux cordistes d’atteindre un moment de grâce.”

Concert (Apr 14, 2002) in La Presse (Québec), April 2002

“Les chuchotements furtifs des musiciennes achèvent de construire une atmosphère empreinte de mystère… Une soirée de haut calibre…”

Concert (May 11, 2001) in Voir (Québec), May 2001

“The Bozzini Quartet… developed a concentrated creative energy… sound after sound a breathing, light and mysterious world full of shining details.”

Concert (May 4, 2001), Concert (May 6, 2001), Concert (May 6, 2001) in Aargauer Zeitung (Switzerland), May 2001

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