Fine Arts Quartet - Four American Quartets (2008)

Tracklist

01. String Quartet No. 1: I. Moderato
02. String Quartet No. 1: II. Andante Espressivo
03. String Quartet No. 1: III. Allegro Scherzando
04. String Quartet No. 2 "Company": I. Quarter Note = 96
05. String Quartet No. 2 "Company": II. Quarter Note = 160
06. String Quartet No. 2 "Company": III. Quarter Note = 96
07. String Quartet No. 2 "Company": IV. Quarter Note = 160
08. String Quartet No. 3: I. Allegretto
09. String Quartet No. 3: II. Largo
10. String Quartet No. 3: III. Quasi Presto (scherzo)
11. String Quartet No. 3: IV. Allgro Giocoso
12. Echoes

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. Finally completed in 1995, Ralph Evans’s 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 classical 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.

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