Quartetto Nous - String Quartets - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Unchanged since it's formation more than a decade ago, the Quartetto Noûs has made albums for the Amadeus tag and the Italian division of Warner Classics, but this is the ensemble's first recording to receive international distribution and attention. Having studied with the Quartetto di Cremona but also quartet luminaries such as Gunter Pichler and Rainer Schmidt, they combine an Italian warmth of collective sonority with the incisive musical instincts of modern-European schools of quartet playing. Pesenting five of Shostakovich's best-known quartets, this volume presents the first in a projected series of the complete quartets for on Brilliant Classics. Contemporaneous with the postwar Ninth Symphony which attracted censure for it's unsettling humor, the Third Quartet of 1946 remained one of the composer's own favorite works, and it's five-movement form dives deep into dark waters before finding uneasy rest in one of Shostakovich's most characteristically edgy finales. It was following the death of Stalin in 1953 that several of Shostakovich's works began to feature his musical monogram, DSCH transliterated into notation, and the Fifth Quartet is one of the first such pieces. The contrapuntal working of the quartet makes it one of the most satisfying in the cycle, while the Seventh presents the composer once more as oddball clown, the Fool to the King Lear of the Eighth Quartet, where the DSCH motif finds a tragic apotheosis. The five-movement form once more serves Shostakovich well in the Ninth but signs of his refined and austere 'late style' begin to appear in the solemn simplicity of the slow music and the pithy exhilaration of the finale, which is almost a quartet in itself and the most Bartókian movement of the entire cycle. Album Tracks 1. String Quartet No.3 in F Op.73 2. String Quartet No.5 in B-Flat Op.92 3. String Quartet No.7 in F-Sharp minor

MusicWeb International made the first volume of this series a Recording of the Month when it was released in 2022. 'This recording by the Quartetto Nous is an exceptionally good one... The superb sound given to the Nous really does make a difference... The Nous play with plenty of grit... but there is always that sense of lamenting, singing voices behind and responding to the violence... If you have any sense that these works are just a bit too austere then this recording is really one to get as it has given me immense pleasure as well as the more expected qualities of a recording of music by Shostakovich.' The Italian ensemble now turns to a trio of quartets traditionally considered inscrutable but (in the right performances) no less filled with both musical and private stories than the quartets of Bartok. The Tenth Quartet embeds the composer's cryptogram, DSCH, within the textures of the outer movements, which are separated by a biting Scherzo and a desolate passacaglia. Reminiscent in these facets of the composer's mid-period symphonies, there is a highly compressed symphonic expression to the quartet. The Eleventh, by contrast is episodic and elliptical, a curtain-raiser to the composer's late style, and the first quartet of four to be dedicated to the individual members of the Beethoven Quartet. Sven brief movements outline and develop a long and winding theme, often making it's way unsteadily along a major-minor ridge. The Twelfth takes a unique form one of Shostakovich's typical Moderato introductions takes a 12-tone theme as it's subject, though he does not adopt a serial procedure in developing it. This is followed by a long movement condensing elements of Adagio, recitative and fugue which takes the listener on a long dark night of the soul before a major version of it's opening theme wins out, in characteristically equivocal triumph. Between them, the thr

Maurice Ravel and Gabriel Faure each contributed a single string quartet to the chamber music repertoire, but both works are masterful reflections of their distinct musical voices and the broader evolution of French music in the early 20th century.Ravel's String Quartet in F major, composed in 1903, stands as a defining work of French impressionism in music. Influenced by his teacher Faure and Debussy's quartet from 1893, Ravel's quartet is nevertheless strikingly original. The piece follows the traditional four-movement structure, but with bold harmonic language, refined orchestration for strings, and rhythmic innovation. The first movement is lyrical and elegant, while the second features pizzicato and dynamic contrasts that create a vibrant, almost playful texture. The third movement offers deep introspection, and the final movement reintroduces themes in a whirling, virtuosic conclusion.In contrast, Gabriel Faure's String Quartet in E minor, Op.121 is a late work, completed in 1924, shortly before his death. It was his only string quartet, and it reflects a more introspective, spiritual tone. Faure, already nearly deaf and physically weakened, poured into the music a sense of serenity and resignation. The three-movement structure (unusual for a quartet) avoids virtuosic display in favor of subtle textures and modal harmonies. The work unfolds slowly, with long, flowing lines and a remarkable economy of means, demonstrating his mature mastery of form and expression.Together, Ravel's and Faure's quartets represent two ends of a stylistic spectrum Ravel's vibrant, youthful exploration of sound and structure contrasts with Faure's meditative farewell. Both works, however, reveal the expressive depth and refinement that define French chamber music at it's finest.As an important and substantial bonus to this recording we hear Ravel's Introduction & Allegro for flute, h