Overview
With the courage, vitality and intensity of its performances, the Marmen Quartet is fast establishing itself as one of the most impressive and engaging talents in chamber music. The group has performed at prestigious venues, including Wigmore Hall and Berlin Philharmonie, and festival engagements have taken it to the Amsterdam String Quartet Biennale and BBC Proms, among others. In 2023, the Quartet completed its time as Peak Fellowship Ensemble-in-Residence at the Meadows School of the Arts in Dallas, returning in the 2023/24 season for a tour of the US and Canada.
Johannes Marmen, leader of the Quartet, explains the thinking behind their programme:
The string quartet genre, as established by Joseph Haydn, has undoubtedly been the vessel for the greatest masterpieces of many composers. The notion that this is where they can unleash their fullest expressive formidability has yielded inspired results, yet composers have handled the mighty presence of past masters very differently. How to define one’s own voice in the wake of all that tradition? One-upmanship, reverence, rebellion, homage – the paths are many.
If Haydn established the string quartet as a genre, then Mozart cemented it as a form of high artistic ambition. He clearly identified and was inspired by the extraordinary level in Haydn’s work when he composed a set of six quartets dedicated to his older colleague and friend (of which K.428 is a part).
Beethoven had a less reverent view of Papa Haydn. His first set of string quartets, Op.18, was a clear step forward compared to Haydn, almost deliberately so, like a triumphant statement of progress: more expressive, more extreme, more difficult and virtuosic.
Labelled ‘impressionists’ against their will, there are unmistakably French qualities to the musical languages of Debussy and Ravel. One may not think there is much kinship between them and Haydn, but Debussy especially uses structural and large scale harmonic devices taken right out of the playbook of the Austro-German music tradition. Ravel followed suit but in a leaner, more minimalist style, with added influences from the music of the far east.
Driven by a rigorous ethnomusicological interest, Bartók’s use of traditional music in his writing isn’t ‘added’ but rather inseparably intertwined. We hear his first and third quartet – the latter in particular constructed out of an intricate web of age old classical counterpoint techniques and even older local folk music influences. The marriage of the two results in a music not new, not old, but timeless.
Concert 1: Friday 11 April, 5.30pm
Haydn, String Quartet in D, Op.33 No.6
Coleridge-Taylor, Fantasiestücke
Beethoven, String Quartet in F minor, Op.95
Ends: c. 7.30pm
Concert 2: Saturday 12 April, 10.30am
Mozart, String Quartet No.6 in B flat major, K.159
Bartók, String Quartet No.1 in A minor, Op.7, Sz.40
Debussy, String Quartet in G minor, Op.10
Ends: c. 12.40pm
Concert 3: Saturday 12 April, 5.30pm
Mozart, String Quartet No.16 in E-flat, K.428
Beethoven, String Quartet in E minor, Op.59 No.2, Razumovsky
Ends: c. 7.30pm
Concert 4: Sunday 13 April, 10.30am
Haydn, String Quartet in E flat, Op.33 No.2, The Joke
Bartók, String Quartet No.3 in C-sharp minor, Sz.85
Ravel, String Quartet in F
Ends: c. 12.35pm
Richard Wigmore
Music writer, lecturer and broadcaster for BBC Radio 3. He writes for BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone and has taught classes in Lieder history and interpretation at the Guildhall, Trinity College of Music and Birkbeck College. He read French and German at Cambridge and later studied Music at the Guildhall. His publications include Schubert: The Complete Song Texts and Pocket Guide to Haydn. Twitter: @wigmoresworld | Website: wigmoresworld.co.uk
Prices, per person
Two sharing: standard double or twin £1,070; Garden Room £1,290.
Single occupancy: deluxe single £1,070; standard double for sole use £1,190.
Included
Four concerts, talks on the music, accommodation for two nights, breakfasts, two afternoon teas, two dinners, interval drinks, programme, tips for hotel staff.
Tickets to individual concerts
£30 mornings, £35 evenings. Interval refreshments and a programme are also included. To book these online, please visit this page or contact us.
Start and finish times
Rooms are available for occupancy from 3.00pm on Friday 11 April, with afternoon tea available from this point.
The final concert, on Sunday 13 April, will end by 12.45pm.
Accommodation
The Castle is renowned for its excellent service, for comforts traditional and modern, and for its superb catering. It has been owned and run by the Chapman family for over 60 years. Chamber music events have been held here since 1977, and Martin Randall Travel took over the running of them in 2003.
The hotel’s bedrooms are individually and charmingly decorated. Doubles and twins are mainly of a good size, and the largest are the Garden Rooms. All single occupancy rooms have double beds, and a single supplement is not charged for the smallest – the so-called ‘deluxe singles’. The majority of rooms have a bath with a shower fitment; a very limited amount have walk-in showers.
The hotel has a lift, though some bedrooms are then accessed via stairs, and the Music Room (not accessible by lift) is on a mezzanine level, up a flight of stairs from the lobby. Please let us know when you book if you have specific access requirements.
Taunton lies on the doorstep of Exmoor and the Quantocks, areas with some of the loveliest countryside in England.
Combine with
Albania: Crossroads of Antiquity, 26 March–4 April 2025
Minoan Crete, 28 March–5 April 2025
Normans in the South, 1–9 April 2025
Art in Madrid, 2–6 April 2025
Romans & Carolingians, 2–9 April 2025
Opera & Ballet in Copenhagen, 3–7 April 2025
