Sirius Quartet Evans String Quartet No 1

This release is an important milestone in the collaboration between the Finnish composer and pianist Olli Mustonen and the Norwegian string quartet Engegård Quartet.

Since its formation in 1975, the Takács Quartet has been recognized as one of the world's leading string quartets. Their award-winning recordings include the complete Beethoven String Quartets for Decca, recorded between 2002 and 2004. Decca Classics celebrates the acclaimed quartet with this multi-media presentation of the Beethoven quartets on 7 CDs and a 104-page booklet.

With their recording of Dmitri Shostakovich's complete string quartets, the Quatuor Danel has crafted an impressive opus that delves into the composer's life with deep musical understanding and establishes unparalleled standards in interpreting his chamber music. These new live recordings, stemming from their 2022 residency at the Mendelssohn Hall of the Gewandhaus Leipzig, capture the full spectrum of emotions embedded in Shostakovich’s quartet cycle, from the ethereal to the profound, from the whimsical to the contemplative. With their interpretation of this extraordinary cycle, the Quatuor Danel has forged a distinctive Shostakovich style that cannot be found in any other quartet. Primarius Marc Danel reflects on the resonance with the audience in Leipzig, describing it as nothing short of sensational. “I hope the recordings will also convey the collective spirit we permanently felt during our residency in the Mendelssohn Hall."

Launching their complete cycle of Beethoven’s string quartets, the Cuarteto Casals present this first installment featuring initial examples of the genre from each of the three key periods in the composer’s career: his formative years, the socalled ‘heroic’ middle period and that of his artistic maturity. The ingenious juxtaposition reveals how his superhuman struggle for perfection informed a musical language of breathtaking originality in tandem with a depth of expression without precedent in this genre, of which Beethoven is the uncontested master.