Sirius Quartet Evans String Quartet No 1

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.

If this premiere recording of Stephen Hough’s String Quartet No 1 may be regarded as definitive—the work is dedicated to the Takács Quartet—those of the quartets by Ravel and Dutilleux are no less distinguished.

Formed in 1994 at the Royal College of Music in London, the Belcea Quartet already has an impressive discography, including the complete Beethoven string quartets (ALPHA262). For this new recording, the ensemble has chosen three quartets by two iconic composers of the 20th century: Leos Janáček and György Ligeti. Fifteen years after their first recording for Zig-Zag, and after some changes in personnel, they have decided to record again the two string quartets by Janáček. The First Quartet was inspired by Leon Tolstoy’s famous novella, The Kreutzer Sonata: the fourmovement work follows the narrative, including its culminating murder. The Second Quartet is subtitled Intimate Letters, in homage to Kamila Stösslova, with whom the composer had an important relationship expressed through letters, one that influenced both his life and his music. Finally, the First Quartet by Ligeti, subtitled Métamorphoses nocturnes because of its particular form. The composer described the work as a sort of theme and variations, but not with a specific theme that is then subsequently varied: rather, it is a single musical thought appearing under constantly new guises – for this reason the word ‘metamophoses’ is more appropriate than ‘variations’.

If Alberto Ginastera had not been born three years after the scandalous premiere of the Sacre du Printemps, he could easily be considered one of the earliest adepts of the "pagan" Stravinsky: The wild rhythms of prehistoric dances, volcanic eruptions of the most complex layers of sound and technical tortures of all kinds permeate his work, which nevertheless manages without formal arbitrariness. The first string quartet from 1948, for example, moves along classical lines, with many a bow losing its horsehair - not unlike the piano quintet premiered in Venice in 1963, which explores the limits of the possible in seven extremely succinct, in the composer's words, "neo-expressionist" sections. In this context, Maurice Ravel's unique string quartet functions as an "impressionistic" antipode and filigree pole of calm.