Melos Quartett Stuttgart
Melos Quartet (from L to R: H.Voss, W.Melcher, P.Buck, G.Voss) in 1977
Background information
Also known as	The Melos String Quartet
Origin	Stuttgart, Germany
Genres	Classical
Occupation(s)	Chamber ensemble
Years active	1965–2005
Labels	Intercord, Deutsche Grammophon, Harmonia Mundi, Beyer Records, BIS, Hännsler Classics, Tower Records (Japan releases), SWR Digital releases
Past members	Wilhelm Melcher, 1st violin Gerhard Voss, 2nd violin (1965–1993) Ida Bieler, 2nd violin (1993–2005) Hermann Voss, viola Peter Buck, cello

The Melos Quartet was a much-recorded, Stuttgart-based string quartet active from 1965 until 2005, when its first violinist died. It also went by the name Melos Quartett Stuttgart, partly to distinguish itself from the equally prominent chamber group the Melos Ensemble of London.

Origins and activities

Melos Quartett Stuttgart was founded in October 1965 by four young members of well-known German chamber orchestras. The name Melos, an ancient Greek word for singing, and the root of the word melody, was suggested by the combination of the names Melcher and Voss, to indicate their purpose as distinct individuals seeking musical harmony together.^[1] Leader Melcher of Hamburg studied with Erich Röhn and with both Pina Carmirelli and Arrigo Pelliccia of the Boccherini Quintet in Rome. He won the International Chamber Music Competition in Venice in 1962 and became concertmaster of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra the next year.^[2] The Voss brothers are Rhinelanders. They studied with Sandor Végh, and Hermann continued as a pupil of Ulrich Koch, becoming solo violist of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. Cellist Buck is a Swabian who studied in Düsseldorf and Freiburg and with Ludwig Hoelscher in Stuttgart. Gerhard Voss and Buck were members of the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra.

In 1966 the group gave its first recital, won a prize in the Villa-Lobos-Quartet competition in Rio de Janeiro, represented West Germany at the World Congress of Jeuness Musicale in Paris, and, most influentially for their future success, won the Prix américain as the best quartet at the Geneva International Congress of Musical Performance.

Then, giving up their orchestral positions to concentrate solely on the Quartet, they began touring in 1967 and in 1968 performed in seven European countries. In 1969 they gave 105 concerts throughout the world, and had their first television appearance.

Contract with Deutsche Grammophon

In 1969 the group signed a five-year contract with the D.G.G. record company, and spent 25 days that year making recordings for radio and commercial release. They obtained the first prize of the String Quartet Foundation sponsored by German industry in 1970, and in 1972 they entered into a further contract with D.G.G. for complete recordings of the Schubert and Cherubini string quartets.

After this they undertook tours around the world, in North and South America, Africa,^[3] all European countries, the Near East and Far East, getting as far as Novosibirsk in Russia. They became the first West German musicians to play in Volgograd (Stalingrad), in 1973, in concerts commemorating the events of 1943. By 1975, when the Schubert integral recordings were completed and issued, the Quartet also held a teaching post at the Stuttgart School of Music.

By 1975 the group had built up a repertoire of 120 works, including the complete Beethoven, Schubert, Cherubini, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Janáček quartets, and works by Haydn, Mozart, Hugo Wolf, Pfitzner, Verdi, Donizetti, Debussy, Smetana, Kodály, Hindemith, Bartók, Alban Berg, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Witold Lutosławski, Milko Kelemen, Robert Wittinger and Josef Maria Horváth. They made a conscious decision to have a wide-ranging repertoire in order to avoid getting stuck to any particular period.

For most of the Schubert recordings the instruments were a cello by Francesco Ruggieri (1682), a viola by Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi (18th century), first violin by Domenico Montagnana (1731) and second violin by Carlo Annibale Tononi (18th century).

They were planning a farewell tour in 2005, when Wilhelm Melcher, the first violinist died unexpectedly just before his 65th birthday.

Among others, the Quartet collaborated with Arthur Rubinstein, Mstislav Rostropovich, Georg Solti, Narciso Yepes, Piero Farulli and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

Personnel

The membership was unusually stable:

• Wilhelm Melcher (*1940 – †2005), violin I
• Gerhard Voss (*1939), from 1965 to 1993 violin II
• Ida Bieler (*1950), from 1993 to 2005 violin II
• Hermann Voss (*1934), viola
• Peter Buck (*1937), cello

Recordings

For Deutsche Grammophon label, in 1977, they taped Schubert String Quintet with Mstislav Rostropovich as second cellist; Mozart 10 Great String Quartets, the complete cycle of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Cherubini and Schubert. They recorded twice the complete Beethoven cycle (1970 for Intercord and 1983/85 for DGG), and later the two Janáček Quartets. For DGG, with violists Franz Beyer and Piero Farulli, they recorded the complete String Quintets by Mozart. They recorded also many unusual repertoire for SWR Radio, recently released in digital format.

References