The Juliet Letters Malion Quartett & Karsten Schmidt-Hern

• Declan MacManus (b. 1954): Deliver Us:
• 1 MacManus: Deliver Us 00:55
• For Other Eyes:
• 2 MacManus: For Other Eyes 02:43
• Swine:
• 3 MacManus: Swine 02:14
• Expert Rites:
• 4 MacManus: Expert Rites 02:25
• Paul Cassidy: Dead Letter:
• 5 Cassidy: Dead Letter 02:20
• Declan MacManus: I Almost Had A Weakness:
• 6 MacManus: I Almost Had A Weakness 03:48
• Why?:
• 7 MacManus: Why? 01:52
• Michael Thomas (b. 1944): Who Do You Think You Are?:
• 8 Thomas: Who Do You Think You Are? 03:41
• Declan MacManus: Taking My Life In Your Hands:
• 9 MacManus: Taking My Life In Your Hands 03:09
• This Offer Is Unrepeatable:
• 10 MacManus: This Offer Is Unrepeatable 03:18
• Dear Sweet Filthy World:
• 11 MacManus: Dear Sweet Filthy World 04:46
• Ian Belton: The Letter Home:
• 12 Belton: The Letter Home 03:08
• Michael Thomas: Jacksons, Monk And Rowe:
• 13 Thomas: Jacksons, Monk And Rowe 03:32
• Paul Cassidy: This Sad Burlesque:
• 14 Cassidy: This Sad Burlesque 02:46
• Michael Thomas: Romeo's Seance:
• 15 Thomas: Romeo's Seance 03:15
• Declan MacManus: I Thought I’d Write To Juliet:
• 16 MacManus: I Thought I’d Write To Juliet 04:30
• Michael Thomas: Last Post:
• 17 Thomas: Last Post 01:59
• Declan MacManus: The First To Leave:
• 18 MacManus: The First To Leave 04:48
• Damnation's Cellar:
• 19 MacManus: Damnation's Cellar 03:15
• The Birds Will Still Be Singing:
• 20 MacManus: The Birds Will Still Be Singing 06:11
• Total Runtime 01:04:35

Info for The Juliet Letters

With The Juliet Letters (1993), Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet created a unique work that combines vocals and string quartet in a “song sequence with a title”. Inspired by letters to “Juliet” from Verona, the 20 songs tell of love, loss and human abysses. The cycle transcends genre boundaries by merging elements of classical music, pop and jazz into a new unity. Karsten Schmidt-Hern and the Malion Quartet present their very own take on the work.

Karsten Schmidt-Hern, voice
Malion Quartett

Karsten Schmidt-Hern
lives as a freelance singer in Frankfurt am Main. He only discovered classical singing at the age of 40 and received his vocal training from Professor Holger Falk and Neil Semer. His love of music and singing led him to give up his job as a partner in a major commercial law firm at the end of 2017 and devote himself entirely to music.

In his concerts, he sings major song cycles and curates his own programs, which, in addition to classical song, also feature genres such as musicals, jazz, and pop. He organizes his own concerts in Frankfurt and the surrounding area and performs at song and chamber music events in the region. Recently, he has given concerts in Düsseldorf, Hanover, Stuttgart, Hanover, Paris, and Timisoara (Romania). In 2022, he began collaborating with the Malion Quartet, with whom he has since shared the stage in several concerts. In 2025, he will record his first CD with the Malion Quartet.

Malion Quartett
‘In an era in which young string quartets seem to be springing out of the ground in large numbers, the Malion Quartet occupies an exceptional position’ - these are the words with which the legendary pianist Alfred Brendel chose to describe the Malion Quartet. Founded in Frankfurt am Main in 2018, the quartet has now firmly established itself as one of the most versatile ensembles on the international music scene. Within a very short space of time, they won many prizes and awards at prestigious competitions such as the Deutsche Musikwettbewerb, the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition and the Irene Steels-Wilsing Foundation International String Quartet Competition. Alongside their international concert activities, the quartet also pursues new and exciting ways of developing music education.

The young, international ensemble has performed in major concert halls such as Alte Oper Frankfurt, Cologne Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall London, Izumi Hall Osaka and Cité de la musique in Paris and has been invited to established music festivals including Rheingau Music Festival, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Heidelberger Frühling, Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker and Podium Esslingen. They have played at string quartet biennials in Paris and Munich and in 2023 were appointed ‘Quartet in Residence’ at the Holzhausenschlösschen Frankfurt. The quartet's special partnerships include its long-standing collaboration with the composer Jörg Widmann as well as joint performances with artists such as Kit Armstrong, Martin Stadtfeld, Christina Daletska, Hariolf Schlichtig, Kaan Bulak and the Vogler Quartet.

The Malion Quartet has initiated a number of its own projects with the aim of making classical music accessible to a wide audience, through innovative concert formats, unusual concert venues and digital media. This includes the special concept of ON/OFFstage concerts, which lead to the creation of both the Malion Music Festival and the concert series ‘What does Beethoven have to do with me?’. The film production ‘Große Fuge’ earned the quartet a nomination for the Opus Klassik. The ensemble has also released two critically acclaimed CDs with the record labels KALEIDOS and Solaire Records.

The Malion Quartet is distinguished by its wide-ranging repertoire, which includes the masterpieces of the classical string quartet tradition as well as rarely performed works by modern and avant-garde composers and musical crossovers. With its love of experimentation, the quartet is also involved in interdisciplinary projects, seeking dialogue with art forms such as dance, theatre, literature, electronic music, video and light installations, even haute cuisine! Over the years, the group has recorded numerous radio productions for SWR, WDR, BR, HR and Deutschlandradio, documenting the vast scope of their artistry.

The ensemble and its projects have been supported by scholarship programmes from the Deutsche Musikrat, the Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz, the European concert initiative MERITA and the #MusikerZukunft programme of the Deutsche Orchester-Stiftung, amongst others. The quartet has received valuable musical inspiration through intensive work with Alfred Brendel, Eberhard Feltz and members of the Alban Berg Quartet, Cuarteto Casals, Cuarteto Quiroga and Meta4. The four musicians studied as a quartet at the universities in Frankfurt am Main with Prof Tim Vogler and in Hanover with Prof Oliver Wille.

Booklet for The Juliet Letters