[ ECM / CD ]
Release Date: Sunday 13 September 2020
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The Danish String Quartet's Grammy-nominated Prism project links Bach fugues, late Beethoven quartets and works by modern masters. In volume two of the series, Bach's Fugue in Bb minor from the Well-Tempered Clavier (in the arrangement by Viennese composer Emanuel Aloys Förster) is brought together with Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 130 and Alfred Schnittke's String Quartet No.3 (composed in 1983). As the quartet explains, "A beam of music is split through Beethoven's prism. The important thing to us is that these connections be experienced widely. We hope the listener will join us in the wonder of thee beams of music that travel all the way from Bach through Beethoven to our own times." Recorded in historic Reitstadel Neumarkt and produced by Manfred Eicher
"Versatility is a signal virtue of the ensemble: their smoothly planed, viollike pure tone in the opening Bach fugue as well as the Lassus cadence which opens the Schnittke carries no trace of irony or displacement. It's natural music-making, and no less winning in their ways are the quartet's blithe assimilation of 18th-century minuet style in the Poco scherzando of the Beethoven, or the bleak electrical buzzing in the finale of the Schnittke" Gramophone
"A revelatory connected soundscape in which Beethoven's introspection feels more unsettling than usual." BBC Music Chamber Choice Nov 2020
1. FUGUE IN BB MINOR BWV 869
(Johann Sebastian Bach)
06:48
ALFRED SCHNITTKE - STRING QUARTET NO.3
2. Andante 06:11
3. Agitato 07:49
4. Pesante 08:36
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN - STRING QUARTET OP.130/OP.133
5. Adagio ma non troppo 09:52
6. Presto 02:00
7. Poco scherzoso. Andante con moto ma non troppo 07:05
8. Alla danza tedesca. Allegro assai 03:22
9. Cavatina. Adagio molo espressivo 07:49
10. Ouverture. Allegro - Fuga (Große Fuge)16:44