Fine Arts

This recording gathers four string quartets by American composers who are widely divergent in style and manner, and who have made a distinctive and personal contribution to this endlessly re-inventive format. Ralph Evans is more familiar as a performer than composer. Finally completed in 1995, his First String Quartet is written in a non-derivative style, with tuneful melodies, lively counterpoint and piquant harmonies. Philip Glass has completed five mature quartets, his Second Quartet deriving from a theatrical presentation of Samuel Beckett’s prose poem Company. The self-styled ‘bad boy of American music’, George Antheil wrote three string quartets, the third of which is permeated by a folk-music ambience. Best remembered for his film scores, Bernard Herrmann had not released a concert work for 25 years when he wrote Echoes. Its title applies to the thematic connections unobtrusively linking the ten sections of this one-movement piece.

A recording of Loreena’s ground-breaking 1994 recording, The Mask and Mirror, was captured live at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on May 19th 1994, originally for radio syndication throughout the U.S. and Canada. On June 14th, it will be released as The Mask and Mirror Live – and it’s available to you for pre-order now.

A recording of Loreena’s ground-breaking 1994 recording, The Mask and Mirror, was captured live at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on May 19th 1994, originally for radio syndication throughout the U.S. and Canada. On June 14th, it will be released as The Mask and Mirror Live – and it’s available to you for pre-order now.

A recording of Loreena’s ground-breaking 1994 recording, The Mask and Mirror, was captured live at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on May 19th 1994, originally for radio syndication throughout the U.S. and Canada. On June 14th, it will be released as The Mask and Mirror Live – and it’s available to you for pre-order now.

A recording of Loreena’s ground-breaking 1994 recording, The Mask and Mirror, was captured live at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on May 19th 1994, originally for radio syndication throughout the U.S. and Canada. On June 14th, it will be released as The Mask and Mirror Live – and it’s available to you for pre-order now.

Antonín Dvoráks music, imbued with the spirit of Bohemia, reflects a love of his native land. His String Sextet, written in the distinctive style which brought him international fame, was an immediate success at its premiere. Composed just eight years earlier, his String Quartet No. 4, unpublished until 1968, features pioneering, wild outer movements, highly unusual for the time, which foreshadowed the modernist innovations of composers decades later. A moving Andante religioso, which Dvorák made use of in future works, lies at its heart. The Polonaise exploits both the soulful and virtuoso character of the cello.

The Ultimate All in one Drawing Course

Mozart himself had arranged four of his earlier concertos for the ensemble of piano, string quartet and bass, to enable his works to be performed domestically.

Pianist Alon Goldstein is joined by American chamber music ensemble the Fine Arts Quartet and special guest Rachel Calin on double bass for the world premiere recordings of these chamber versions of two of Mozart’s greatest and most popular piano concertos. To make the two works more accessible to the public, 19th century composer Ignaz Lachner left the piano parts untouched and wrote splendid string quartet transcriptions of the orchestra parts with added bass. These arrangements sound almost as natural as if Mozart had transcribed them himself.