VARIATIONS - KREUTZER QUARTET - Rochberg - Quartet No.3 - Schwartz - Bellagio Variations

ID: MSVCD92051 (EAN: 5019148627661)  | 1 CD | DDD
Released in: 2000

LABEL:

METIER

Collection:

Chamber Music

Subcollection:

Quartet

Composers:

ROCHBERG, George | SCHWARTZ, Elliott

Ensembles:

Kreutzer String Quartet

Other info:

Two major works for string quartet which both present structured, yet "polystylistic" forms- attuned to the modern ear, which is used to hearing "sound bites" - and what Schwartz calls "collage-oriented". It is rare to find music written with so much emphasis on the listener

tracks:
Elliott Schwartz:Bellagio VariationsGeorge Rochberg:String Quartet no. 3

The Kreutzer Quartet includes:

Peter Sheppard Skærved (Violin)
Mihailo Trandafilovski and previously Gordon MacKay (Violin)
Morgan Goff and previously Bridget Carey (Viola)
Neil Heyde (Cello)

“George Rochberg's Third Quartet from 1972 is a masterpiece that rejects serial modernism, going beyond quotation in a revival of the styles of Mahler and Beethoven. The Quartet is no postmodern pastiche either… powerful advocacy from The Kreutzer Quartet.” - Andy Hamilton (The Wire)

“George Rochberg's String Quartet no. 3 is one of the great essays in this medium of the latter half of the 20th century. How wonderful to hear the Kreutzer Quartet perform this influential work. Schwartz [in the Variations] twists all the knobs, from spiky to sentimental, to keep the listener engaged throughout. This is a keeper album.” - Mark Alburger (21st Century Music)

“The members of the Kreutzer Quartet handle [the challenges of the Schwartz] with breathtaking sensitivity. In the Kreutzer's hands the Bellagio Variations receive a wonderfully nuanced performance, by turns (and sometimes all at once) taut, luxurious, witty and ferocious, entirely befitting the wilfully disorienting, dream-like nature of the music.” - Tom Myron (Brunswick Times)