Quatuor Diotima - Boulez: Livre pour Quatuor - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Rural tradition meets hi-tech in this pairing of extremes by master improviser, Esther Lamneck. Both provocative and mesmerizing, her agility on this underappreciated folk instrument is without equal. When interfaced with live electronic processing, furthermore, she surely reaches sonic territories where no one has gone before. Six electroacoustic composers, from Italy to Brazil, and her home base in New York, have collaborated with Lamneck on this journey. The tarogato is a single reed woodwind instrument with a hauntingly beautiful sound. It is originally a folk instrument from the regions of Hungary and Romania whose music has been handed down aurally; references to folk art and gypsy melodies are woven throughout this album. The instrument provides a rich sound, full of harmonics, and Lamneck has managed to extend the range by an octave. Because it does not have the extensive key mechanism of a clarinet or saxophone, there are many glissandos and otherwise impossible techniques available. Lamneck explains, InchIn this album, Tarogato Constructions, each composer has designed a musical world which reacts to what I play by triggering electronic sounds which then influence the direction of my improvisational composition. All of these musical environments have propelled me to use the extreme sonic possibilities of the tarogato.Inch The New York Times has called Esther Lamneck Inchan astonishing virtuoso.Inch She has an active career as a soloist and is the director of the Woodwind program at NYU.

A virtuoso violinist who was so badly shocked by WW1 that he withdrew from the world altogether, Lucien Durosoir composed works for himself which have mostly never been played. Influenced by Debussy and the German romantic composers, his music shows great formal skillfulness and a degree of inspiration. Features the talents of Naaman Sluchin violin, Yun-Peng Zhao violin, Franck Chevalier viola, Pierre Morlet, cello.

Quatuor Diotima makes it's Pentatone debut with a recording of Györgi Ligeti's string quartets. While the second quartet from 1968 is an avantgarde classic, the first from 1953-54, InchMetamorphoses nocturnesInch, is often nicknamed Bartók's seventh quartet, pointing out the continuity between these two Hungarian master composers. Despite moments of nostalgia, it already possesses the ferocious, adventurous nature of the later quartet. In-between these two iconoclast works, the Andante and Allegretto from 1950 offers an intimate moment of repose. The members of Diotima long postponed recording Ligeti's string quartets, intimidated by their significance in music history and the demands they place on the players, but now the time has come to pursue this fascinating project and share it with the world. The quartet is fascinated by the cinematic qualities of Ligeti's music and it's use in films, including Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey. The album cover pays homage to that iconic movie. Quatuor Diotima is one the most in-demand chamber ensembles in the world today, and has worked in close collaboration with several of the greatest composers of the late twentieth century. Reflected in the mirror of today's music, the quartet projects a new light onto the masterpieces of the 19th and 20th centuries.