Brentano String Quartet, Ashley Bathgate, Lisa Moore, Elly Toyoda More Essential Martin Bresnick꞉ The Planet on The Table

Protean Quartet, winner of the prestigious first prize at the 2022 York Early Music International Young Artists Competition, explores the String Quartet repertoire of the second half of the XVIII Century, from the last of the so-called “Russian Quartets”, by Franz Joseph Haydn, to Beethoven’s Op. 18 No.1, the first of his String Quartets to be published, but already a masterpiece of the repertoire. The album also includes the first recording of Juan Pedro Almeida’s Quartet op. 7 no. 1. Protean Quartet, performing on period instruments and historically informed criteria, delivers refined, vital, and highly expressive performances.

Protean Quartet, winner of the prestigious first prize at the 2022 York Early Music International Young Artists Competition, explores the String Quartet repertoire of the second half of the XVIII Century. From the last of the so-called “Russian Quartets”, by Franz Joseph Haydn, to Beethoven’s Op. 18 No.1, the first of his String Quartets to be published, but already a masterpiece of the repertoire. The album also includes the first recording of Juan Pedro Almeida’s Quartet op. 7 no. 1. The Protean Quartet, performing on period instruments and historically informed criteria, delivers refined, vital, and highly expressive performances.

In our successful Emilie Mayer edition, we now begin on Vol. 1 with three of her string quartets. While still a student of Carl Loewe, the composer turned to the most aesthetically demanding and respected genre of chamber music, the string quartet. In 1848, a critic of the Berliner Vossische Zeitung praised the "lovely cantilenas," the "deft arrangement," and "especially the noble and dignified style" of her string quartets. The quartets in G major, A major, and E minor were written by 1858 and were always favorably reviewed by the critics. However, borrowing from classical patterns, the strict motivic-thematic interpenetration of formal sections are only some aspects of Mayer's quartet style.

This disc includes all the music for string quartet written by Louis Andriessen, recorded by the Schoenberg Quartet in the years before the group dissolved in 2009. Even in the early Quartet in two movements, written when Andriessen was 18, the composer's inventiveness and quirky sense of humor peek through. It's an affable piece, entirely professional and assured, with enough individuality to be recognizably the work of a composer who has something to say and the wherewithal to say it.

Most often performed in an arrangement for string quartet, this recording of Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross is a unique proposition – offering Haydn’s original instrumental meditations alongside their choral counterparts.

The first commercial recording of Chaya Czernowin’s monumental work for string quartet and electronics, HIDDEN, is released on November 24 by WERGO. The recording features the JACK Quartet, for whom the work was written, along with IRCAM engineers Carlo Laurenzi and Jeremie Henrot. The album also includes a recording of Czernowin’s recent work for solo voice, Adiantum Capillus-Veneris: Etudes in Fragility, performed by mezzo-soprano Inbal Hever. Czernowin describes HIDDEN as “a very slow moving, 45-minute experience, which transforms the ear into an eye.” The work is a striking aural landscape that offers a unique opportunity for sonic observation and perceptual exploration. The US premiere of HIDDEN at the ICA in Boston was chosen as one of the “Best 10 Musical Events of 2016” by Steve Smith in the Log Journal and featured as a “current obsession” by Alex Ross on WQXR.