Faure Quartett Simone Kermes - R. Strauss & Mahler: Piano Quartets & Lieder (2014)

About the project:
Collaborating for the first time the Fauré Quartett and soprano Simone Kermes perform pieces by Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss: Featuring Lieder from Strauss‘s early productive period and Mahler Lieder arranged by Dietrich Zöllner.

Simone Kermes underlines with these Lieder interpretation the diversity of her stylistic sensibility. In equal measure the Fauré Quartett once again demonstrates the enormous range of its repertoire. The Fauré Quartett’s new recording of works by Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss borders on a small miracle: Strauss, as the founding father of the German performance and reproduction rights organisation GEMA, personally ensured that musicians were not permitted to make arrangements of his works until 70 years after his death (2019). After months of research, a direct call to the great-granddaughter of Richard Strauss allowed this arrangement to happen.

In time for the 150th birthday of Richard Strauss, and to express reverence to Gustav Mahler, this recording includes two works dating from the young years of these geniuses: their great and seldom recorded piano quartets.



About Simone Kermes:

Kermes has a number of international awards for her solo albums, such as the annual prize of the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik, the Diapason d`Or, Midem Award, Choc Le Monde de la Musique, Gramophone magazine’s CD of the Month and the Echo Prize. For her CD entitled Colori d`amore she was the winner of the Echo Prize in the highest category, Female Singer of the Year, in 2011. In 2012 the Munich Abendzeitung awarded Simone Kermes its Star of the Year Award, and in April 2013 she received one of Russia’s highest cultural awards, the Golden Mask, for her performances as Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Tchaikovsky State Academic Theatre in Perm.


“A flamboyant star in her native Germany, Simone Kermes is a dangerous, no-holds-barred singer.” Gramophone

About Fauré Quartett:
The Fauré Quartett has established itself as one of the world’s leading piano quartets within just a few years. They use the opportunities arising from these developments. They discover new sound fields in chamber music and perform compositions outside the mainstream repertoire.

They are visionary in their approach and highly regarded for their experiments and discoveries; be it performances with the NDR Big Band, collaborations with artists like Rufus Wainwright or Sven Helbig, appearances in clubs like the Berghain, Cocoon Club or “Le Poisson Rouge” in New York or TV shows in KIKA or “Rhapsody in School”, getting children exited in chamber music. In 2010 the ensemble was awarded the ECHO Classic for their album “classic beyond borders”, their second award after their recording of Brahms’ piano quartets (Chamber Music recording of the year, 2008). Other prizes include the German Music Competition, the ensemble prize from Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, international competition and recording awards, Music Prize Duisburg and Brahms prize Schleswig Holstein.