How was music played in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – and can we rediscover means of expression that were lost in the twentieth century?

 

We started playing chamber music together in Berlin around 2015 and created Tamuz a few years later because we all wanted to experiment with classical and romantic chamber music in a profoundly different way, developing a common language based on a historically informed approach. By becoming familiar with the traditions and tastes of the past and by reading between the lines of the musical text, we began engaging with music in a new way, allowing expression to be the leading principle of our performances even if this means diverging from modern concert hall and recording practices. Using original scores and historical documents, we try to achieve both a faithful and a personal interpretation. 

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Inspired by the 19th century salons, our ensemble aims to create intimate concert experiences in which direct communication with the audience is a central element. By sitting, whenever possible, in a circle amidst our listeners rather than on a stage, we engage in conversation with our audience, far from the formality of modern day concert halls. Casting a wide net, the ensemble works on a very diverse repertoire including the “Art of Fugue” by Johann Sebastian Bach, the string quintets of Schubert, Onslow and Boccherini, as well as arrangements of Lieder and arias of Mozart and Schumann. In collaboration with singers and other instrumentalists, we seek to bring forgotten works or neglected composers back onto the stage and to cast a new light on each of the pieces we play.

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Over the last few years, we have performed regularly in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, including at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Concerti delle Camelie in Locarno, the Fel!x Festival in Cologne and the Concerts d'été à Saint-Germain in Geneva. In 2022, we were invited to spend some time at the Centro di musica antica Ghislieri in Pavia, Italy, to continue our research into Romantic performance practice in collaboration with Professor Clive Brown. Shortly afterwards, we were supported by the Center for Early Music Cologne through its “zamus: advanced” program, and in 2023 we recorded quintets by Schubert and Onslow for the WDR in Cologne.

 

In 2025, our first CD with two string quintets by George Onslow will be released by Arcana/Outhere Music. Our projects for next year include the recording of a second CD, our first performance of Schönberg's Verklärte Nacht on gut strings, and a research project funded by the Berlin Senate in collaboration with pianist Avinoam Shalev and the Carl Bechstein Foundation . 

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