Parker / Solem Quartet / Turner / Christensen - Travelling Light - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The Spanish violinist Lina Tur Bonet loves big challenges Bach, Biber, Corelli, Vivaldi. She has already dedicated two albums to the Inchprete rossoInch, which have enraptured audiences and critics alike Inchdevil's violinistInch, Inchrock star attitudeInch, InchJimi Hendrix of the baroque violinInch are just some of the descriptions one could read about her. With this recording, she ascends to the InchVivaldi OlympusInch and dedicates herself to the InchFour SeasonsInch. Tur Bonet also succeeds in living up to her reputation here She elicits new facets from the much-performed work, offers surprisingly new listening impressions and delivers an expressive, emotionally charged interpretation. The violinist contrasts Vivaldi with Astor Piazzolla's InchFour SeasonsInch. Although this is not a new idea, Tur Bonet is also going her own way here she plays Piazzolla's work in the original quartet instrumentation and has brought highly virtuoso Argentinian tango specialists to her side. The result is tango in it's purest form sweet and rough, sad and wild, rhythmic and free.

On their ECM New Series debut, the Boston-based Parker Quartet, hailed by the Washington Post for Inchexceptional virtuosity and imaginative interpretation,Inch play music of Gyorgy Kurt g and are joined by violist Kim Kashkashian, one of the quartet's early mentors, to play Dvor k. In this powerful program of contrasts, Dvor k's outgoing String Quintet No. 3 is framed by two of Kurt g's concentrated, meticulously shaped works.

Gyorgy Ligeti' choral and orchestral music hit the mainstream when it was featured in the soundtrack of 2001 A Space Odyssey, but his equally remarkable chamber works remain less well known.