Top quartet swaps violist
NewsThe award-laden Cuarteto Casals of Barcelona has lost its violist Jonathan Brown to a teaching vocation at Colburn in LA.
Brown is replaced by his former student Cristina Cordero, 26, who was not yet born when the quartet was formed in 1997.
She says it’s a dream come true. ‘It is impossible to express how happy and excited I am to be part of the Cuarteto Casals Since I was little I have admired them deeply and I have grown up listening to their albums, their concerts, their masterclasses… I also had the privilege of studying with Jonathan Brown at Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía his values and love of music have been with me ever since. Being able to play with Vera, Abel and Arnau is being one of the most beautiful and inspiring experiences I’ve ever had.. Can’t wait to share this wonderful music with you all very soon.’
How can someone who is 26 years old now, have been four years old in 1977??
Too much fuss over trivial miscalculations in this and in other comments below. A little tempo rubato doesn’t hurt.
she looks very nice.
i wish i was 3 months younger
You might want to check your math.
Never heard them live but I have a couple of their CDs and love them. Hope the replacement works well for the Casals.
I corrected you once already, and you’ve still got it wrong! The quartet was formed in 1997, not 1977, as you originally wrote. The violist was born in 1998. She is 26. The current year is 2024. 2024-26 = 1998. If she was 4 years old in 1997, she would have been born in 1993. Someone born in 1993 is 31 after their birthday, not 26.
The Casals is an interesting quartet. They have the annoying tendency of almost completely eschewing vibrato in Beethoven but unlike many HIP-adjacent bands, they manage *not* to sound like nails on a blackboard in the process. In that regard they’re a bit like Gardiner, as he, too, manages to make HIP tolerable for listeners with great taste such as myself.
In the classical/romantic repertoire my favorites are the Quartetto Italiano and the Amadeus Quartet. Very hip in their time but absolutely not HIP. “Moderns” quartets are mostly boring (of course, they can be seen “live”).