Alinde Quintet - Inscape / Haas - Shostakovich - Vasks - Novák (2025) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Wind Quintet, Op. 10: I. Preludio. Andante, ma vivace
02. Wind Quintet, Op. 10: II. Preghiera. Misterioso e triste
03. Wind Quintet, Op. 10: III. Ballo eccentrico. Ritmo marcato
04. Wind Quintet, Op. 10: IV. Epilogo. Maestoso
05. String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 110: I. Largo
06. String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 110: II. Allegro molto
07. String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 110: III. Allegretto
08. String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 110: IV. Largo
09. String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 110: V. Largo II.
10. Wind Quintet No. 2 In memory of a friend
11. Concertino for Wind Quintet: I. Allegro molto
12. Concertino for Wind Quintet: II. Adagio
13. Concertino for Wind Quintet: III. Allegro (Swingy)

At the prestigious ARD Competition in Munich in 2024, the Alinde Quintet emerged as a dazzling new star on the chamber music scene. By that time, they had already earned several notable prizes in London, Copenhagen, and beyond. The players are closely associated with leading Czech and international orchestras, including the Czech Philharmonic, the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. On their debut album, the quintet presents the intimate inscapes of four composers. In the works of Haas and Shostakovich, the shadow of war and Nazi ideology casts a profound, even fatal shadow on their inscapes, while Shostakovich and Jan Novak also ran into conflict with Communist dictatorships. Yet all of the compositions reflect distinct personal inscapes, offering glimpses into the lives of their creators. Haas's imaginative quintet bears the unmistakable imprint of his teacher Leos Janacek, who had died just months before the work's completion.

Shostakovich's Eighth String Quartet (arranged by Mark A. Popkin) serves as both autobiography and elegy - a dark, haunting inscape tinged with drama. In Peteris Vasks's composition, an ancient Latvian funeral song intertwines with virtuosic passages and aleatoric sections, evoking the heartrending loss of a kindred spirit. Like a contrasting colour on a canvas, the Concertino by Jan Novak brings the album infectious joy, playfulness, and jazzy rhythms, lending radiant colouring to the composer's inscape, which could not be obscured even by the dark clouds of Czechoslovakia's totalitarian regime of the 1950s. Throughout the album, the Alinde Quintet draws on the full spectrum of colours their instruments can offer, vividly painting each composer's inscape.

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