![]() ![]() ![]() The quartet recently premiered Steven Mackey’s theatrical-musical work Memoir, alongside arx duo and actor-narrator Natalie Christa. The group tours Europe twice, including a return to London’s renowned Wigmore Hall and a debut performance in Copenhagen. The Dover Quartet’s 2022–23 season includes collaborations with Edgar Meyer, Joseph Conyers, and Haochen Zhang. Its prestigious honors include the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award, and Lincoln Center’s Hunt Family Award. The group’s awards include a stunning sweep of all prizes at the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition, grand and first prizes at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, and prizes at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition. Watkins Ensemble in Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Dover Quartet holds residencies with the Kennedy Center, Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, Artosphere, and the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival. In addition to its faculty role as the Penelope P. But the real value of the disc lies in a rarity from the same forces: Sibelius’ “Belshazzar’s Feast,” 12 hauntingly imaginative minutes of Nordic Orientalia.Named one of the greatest string quartets of the last 100 years by BBC Music Magazine, the Grammy®-nominated Dover Quartet has followed a “practically meteoric” ( Strings) trajectory to become one of the most in-demand chamber ensembles in the world. Jando is likewise a powerful presence partnering an excellent cellist, Csaba Onczay, in cleareyed, tautly dramatic, altogether satisfying presentations of Beethoven’s most imposing works for this combination, the single sonata of Opus 69 and the two of Opus 102 (550478).Īnother attractive Naxos release is a program of Scandinavian pieces for string orchestra, including some exquisitely schmaltzy miniatures by Grieg and Sibelius’ killingly lovely “Rakastava,” all gracefully delivered by the Bratislava-based Capella Istropolitana under the direction of Adrian Leaper (550330).Īt these prices-$5 or $6 a CD-Naxos’ releases are naturals for filling gaps, as with a CD nominally devoted to two big works by Sibelius, his Fifth Symphony and “En Saga,” in decent-enough performances by Leaper and the Slovak Philharmonic (550200). His agenda for Naxos includes recording all the Beethoven sonatas, among whose first releases at least one is unhesitatingly recommended, that encompassing the three works of Opus 2, delivered with rhythmic snap and a strong awareness of the music’s sharp-edged, Haydnesque affinities (550150). ![]() Naxos is a budget label whose wide-ranging catalogue consists entirely of newly recorded material, performed for the most part by worthy, non-stellar artists, such as Jeno Jando, a 40-year-old Hungarian pianist who was the hero of last year’s knockout program of Liszt knucklebusters on the LaserLight label, another penny-pincher’s delight. Furthermore, and this is meaningful for first-time buyers, Sony supplies helpful program notes, a policy RCA-Silver Seal, which provides no annotations at all, would do well to emulate. There’s the thrilling, sometimes raw sound of a live orchestra, rather than a slick electronic fantasy, in reissues from the 1960s of the six Tchaikovsky symphonies, magnificently executed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel, who leads with commendable vitality and nary a hint of the navel gazing that has afflicted much of his more recent work (London 430 787, four budget CDs).Ī point worth noting about all the aforementioned releases is their generous playing times, each offering at least an hour of music, with the Munch coupling and both Szells topping out at 75 minutes each. On the other hand, the Szell-Cleveland Dvorak “Slavonic Dances” (48161) exemplifies the conductor in a hectoring, teeth-clenched mood, delivering performances remarkable chiefly for their lack of both rhythmic subtlety and dynamic variety, to say nothing of joyousness.ĭvorak is, however, dramatically and affectionately served in the Juilliard Quartet’s 1968 recording of his most popular chamber work, the “American” Quartet, and the only marginally less popular Opus 81 Quintet, in a propulsive reading by pianist Rudolf Firkusny and the Juilliard that first appeared in 1977 (Essential Classics 48170). ![]() Sony’s wallet-pampering Essential Classics line offers what for this listener remains the ultimate pairing of Brahms’ Second and Third Symphonies, in which the Cleveland Orchestra is led with incisiveness and rhythmic flexibility by George Szell (47652). Consider as well, on the same label, the familiar coupling of the Debussy and Ravel string quartets, in incomparably gutsy, colorful interpretations by the Guarneri Quartet in finest 1973 fettle (60909). ![]()
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