New Music String Quartet

Hugo Wolf is best known today for his extraordinary and highly popular Lieder; his small body of compositions for orchestra and chamber ensemble are, sadly, performed and recorded far less. However, the works for string quartet recorded on this disc reveal the seriousness with which Wolf approached this small-scale genre.

Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Elena Kats-Chernin studied music in Moscow, Sydney and Hanover. She has created works across nearly every genre, from rags to operas and works for robotic instruments to a full scale choral symphony. Her music featured at the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and the 2003 Rugby World Cup. She has received several awards including the Sounds Australian, Green Room and Helpmann Awards. In September 2012 her adaptation of 3 Monteverdi operas, a collaboration …….

The Beijing-born guitarist Xuefei Yang has recorded her first album of baroque music, an all-Bach programme anchored by three concertos newly arranged for guitar and string quartet. Bach Concertos is an exciting, innovative album in which she has transcribed for the guitar some of Bach’s familiar violin concertos and other works, hoping to establish these new arrangements as noteworthy repertoire for the guitar and to expand the concerto repertoire for that instrument. Xuefei complements the concertante repertoire with solo guitar arrangements of the Violin Sonata No. 1 BWV 1001, the Prelude in C Major from the Well-Tempered Clavier BWV 846 and the Air on a G string from the Orchestral Suite in D major BWV 1068.

The Nightingale String Quartets survey of the complete quartet works of Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) heralded the arrival of a major new ensemble and won the maverick Danish composer thousands of new fans. Poised and restrained one minute, wild and emotional the next, Langgaards string quartets reveal the composers breathtaking originality and individuality, oscillating between luscious Romanticism and outlandish experimentation. They are played with love and understanding on these multiple prize-winning recordings, here gathered together in a single release for the first time.