Frohlich,Friedrich / Rasumowsky Quartett - Frohlich: Complete String Quartets - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

This new from Musiques Suisses includes the three string quartets by composer Friedrich Theodor Froehlich. The Beethoven Quartet is premiering his works on this recording. Froehlich was a Swiss composer who wrote many orchestral works, chamber and piano music, as well as vocal works. The Beethoven Quartet was founded in 2006 in Beethoven's hometown of Bonn and are based in Basel today. Matyas Bartha and Laurentius Bonitz play violin, Vahagn Aristakesyan plays viola, and Carlos Conrad plays violoncello.

The Stamic Quartet's repertoire ranges from Baroque to 21st-century music, yet the ensemble mainly focuses on works dating from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Following the revelatory premiere recording of Josef Bohuslav Foerster's quartets (Supraphon, 2010), they have now come up with another striking project. Karel Kovarovic (1862-1920) is primarily known for his work as the director of the opera company of the National Theatre in Prague, as well as a conductor, while his own music has been generally overlooked. Nevertheless, Kovarovic wrote several operas, ballet and incidental music, songs, choral and chamber pieces. The Stamic Quartet has made the very first recording of his string quartets, which are yet to be published. The most remarkable of them is String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, dedicated to Antonín Dvorák, which six years after it's premiere in Prague (1888) was performed at the Musikverein in Vienna. Kovarovic did not finish his String Quartet No. 3, most likely owing to his being extremely busy as a conductor and his new responsibilities at the National Theatre. The new album made by the Stamic Quartet serves to prove that Kovarovic's quartets deserve to be paid much greater attention to than has been the case over the past century.

Fuchs / Minguet Quartet - Robert Fuchs Complete String Quartets [COMPACT DISCS] date 02/16/2018