György Kurtág and Antonín Dvořák
with Kim Kashkashian, viola
On their ECM New series debut, the Boston-based Parker Quartet, hailed by the Washington Post for “exceptional virtuosity and imaginative interpretation,” play music of György Kurtág and are joined by violist Kim Kashkashian, one of the quarter’s early mentors, to play Dvořák. In this powerful programme of contrasts, Dvořák’s outgoing String Quintet No. 3, composed in America in 1893, is framed by two of Kurtág’s concentrated, meticulously-shaped works – the Six Moments musicaux (2005) and the Officium breve in memoriam Andreae Szervánszky (1988/89). Throughout, the Parker Quartet’s feeling for colour and texture is in evidence. The quartet’s insights into Kurtág’s soundworld have been developed through extensive work with the Hungarian composer. The album was recorded at Zürich’s Radio DRS Studio.
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Beethoven: String Quartets op. 18, 59, 74
Considered one of the finest American string quartets, the Parker Quartet became quartet in residence at prestigious Harvard University in 2014. Association with this great center of excellence has further developed their interpretation of the Beethoven Quartets. Their subtle readings of them bring new life to every detail of the scores. The three masterpieces chosen for this CD come from a specific period in the composer’s life, 1799-1809 – ten years during which Beethoven blew asunder established classical reference points, forging a new, ambitious and romantic style. For Beethoven, the string quartet was the perfect medium for exploring this new way of writing. More intimate and lighter than the orchestra, the medium is, as Stravinsky would later write, “the most lucid conveyor of musical ideas ever fashioned.”
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