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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Barbirolli Quartet play Britten & Bliss
Barbirolli Quartet: Rakhi Singh (violin), Katie Stillman (violin), Ella Brinch (viola) & Ashok Klouda (cello) “The Barbirollis give warm, idiomatic, intense performances of both works, at times reflecting the comment of one critic in a review, who described their playing as 'red-blooded'...A very welcome issue.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2012 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Britten - String Quartets Nos. 2 & 3
“The Elias is the best young quartet I’ve come across in years.” Paul Driver, Sunday Times, Nov. 2009 The Quartet was formed in 1998 at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, working regularly with the late Dr. Christopher Rowland, and subsequently studying at the Hochschule in Cologne with the Alban Berg quartet. The Quartet received second prize and the Sidney Griller prize at the 9th London International String Quartet Competition in 2003 and were finalists in the Paolo Borciani Competition in 2005. The Elias String Quartet have performed extensively in the UK, at the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Snape Maltings, Kettle’s Yard, Bridgewater Hall, Turner Sims and Fairfield Halls. They have also toured widely, playing at the Stockholm Concert Hall, the Auditorium du Louvre, Paris, and Jordan Hall, Boston, as well as in Germany, Austria, Italy, Australia and the USA. The Quartet have broadcast live on national radio in the UK, France, Australia and Sweden. From 2005-9 the Elias were String Quartet in Residence at Sheffield’s Music in the Round as part of the Ensemble 360, taking over from the Lindsay Quartet. The Elias Quartet were recently selected to join BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme. Future engagements include concerts at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and Carnegie Hall, New York. “Almost nothing in Britten's output compares with the visionary, shadowy yet gleaming fifth movement of Quartet No 3 (1975), written when he was dying...These players do it magnificent justice, playing with virtuosity and intensity.” The Observer, 28th March 2010 “These newcomers...have plenty to offer. I particularly like the variety of colour and meaning they bring to the transformations of the Second Quartet's opening motif...there's plenty of passion and a strong feeling for shape.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2010 **** “These are highly sensitive, touching performances...there is a wonderful pensiveness here and a real appreciation of the beauty of sound and colour, aided by a fine recording...these lyrical Elias performances remind us [Britten] was primarily a composer of vocal music...Nobody who buys this new disc is likely to regret it.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2010 “Having revealed themselves as superb exponents of Mendelssohn’s music, the Elias players now seem natural Brittenists, but the styles are not without their common features: clarity, economy, lyrical decisiveness, faultless technique.” Sunday Times, 2nd May 2010 **** “The Elias String Quartet highlight the germs of greatness in this apparently decorative music – the eerie harmonics and brute malice...Sophisticated phrasing, subtle colouring and impeccable tuning .” The Independent on Sunday, 6th June 2010 “The Elias Quartet catches the powerful emotional undercurrents superbly. The colours, the subtlety of the sounds and the sensitivity of the playing are telling, and in Britten’s Second Quartet...they show that they’re not afraid to explore the violence of the central Vivace, making it snap and bristle with positively Bartok-ian physicality.” Andrew McGregor, bbc.co.uk, 7th June 2010  CD Review
Critics' Disc of the Year - December 2010 |
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| |  | Britten - String Quartets Nos. 1-3
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| |  | Britten - String Quartets
“…for all-round excellence, the Belcea's becomes the new benchmark for these works, surpassing even my previously favoured Amadeus in No. 2 (Decca), and they finish with a spirited account of the Three Divertimenti of 1936.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2005 ***** “The Belcea Quartet have become prominent players on the chamber-music scene. In the concert hall, their rather balletic style of performance can be alienating, but in these Britten recordings you can appreciate their high level of technical accomplishment without the risk of visual distraction.
Collectors familiar with any of the earlier sets of the quartets may not warm immediately to the Belcea's exceptionally dramatic way with the music's contrasting materials. But almost nothing is forced or eccentric here. The hell-for-leather tempo adopted for the First's finale is genuinely exciting, not a scramble, and although there are a few obtrusive, fussy details in the outer movements of No 2 the overall impression is powerfully convincing. No 3 is even better, at least in the earlier movements, bringing a sense of barely suppressed anger to some of Britten's most personal and allusive music. In the last movement the phrasing is occasionally over-pointed: yet, despite tempi that make this account significantly faster than the excellent Magginis and considerably faster than the stately Brodskys, the effect reinforces the true consistency of tone and character which underpins this notably diverse score. This is one of the best-engineered quartet discs you might hope to hear.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Britten: String Quartets
“The Sorrel Quartet can claim a significant 'first' in its account of the recently resurrected F major Quartet from 1928. At 15 Britten was nothing if not precocious, and although the ideas in this substantial piece offer few hints of his mature style, he was already using the medium to excellent effect. Three years later, in the D major Quartet which has been a repertory item since Britten revised it in 1974, there are signs of a more individual voice; this is an attractive performance, well shaped and effectively characterised.
Nevertheless, it's on the interpretation of the Quartet No 2 that the disc must be judged. The Sorrel's naturalness and feeling for line are much in evidence. Tempos for the first movement are broader than most rivals, but they serve an approach which makes a virtue of reticence, and still manages to be quite gripping.
It has just about the best sound currently available (with The Maltings, Snape, providing an ideal acoustic), and the otherwise unrecorded F major Quartet adds strength to the recommendation of this noteworthy disc.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Britten: String Quartets, Vol. 1
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| |  | Britten: String Quartets Nos. 2 & 3
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| |  | Britten: String Quartets
Includes the world première recording of the Miniature Suite The Emperor Quartet was established a decade ago by Martin Burgess, violin; Clare Hayes, violin; Fiona Bonds, viola and William Schofield, cello. They were first British group to win the Evian/Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition where they were also awarded the Mozart and Contemporary Prizes. In their 10th anniversary year the Quartet were nominated for a Grammy award for their recording of Walton String Quartets. “The Emperor Quartet gives a stupendous rendition of the Second Quartet, nuancing it with a fabulously imagined range of colour; it comes across as not only powerful but visionary...There are sounds here that one mightn't have realised a string quartet could make.” Classic FM Magazine, November 2010 ***** “In their very different ways these are highly imaginative works and they receive lively, engaging performances here...the Emperor Players...captur[e] the essential Britten style well - salt-sea splashes of sound, straight out of Peter Grimes, in the Vivace - and able to build up the final Chacony as inexorably as any.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2010 “With the quality of the competition so consistently high, do we really need another recording of Britten quartets? When the playing is as outstanding as this, the answer is an irrevocable 'yes'...The inner parts are clearly audible and well-balanced.” International Record Review, October 2010 “The Emperor Quartet play all three with the right mix of witty insouciance and technical accomplishment, but the group reveals its true colours in the Second Quartet.” The Guardian, 26th August 2010 **** | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Britten - Complete String Quartets
Benjamin Britten (1913-76) was one of the most precocious of all composers who have the term child prodigy attached to them. Britten showed a keen interest in music from a very early age – both as a pianist and composer. He would become a formidable pianist, but as remarkable as his early compositions are (he had composed 6 string quartets by the age of 12!), very few people, including Frank Bridge could predict that he would become the 20th centuries greatest opera composers. In this 2CD set the early Simple Symphony is heard in the composer’s arrangement for quartet. It is based on early works, including his 9th piano sonata of 1926, and the 3rd suite for piano of 1925 – both composed when Britten was just 12 years old. Britten composed three mature quartets spanning his creative life, and one unnumbered work dating from 1931. Britten returned to this student work in 1971 whist recovering from a heart operation, and revised it for performance at the 1975 Aldeburgh Festival. The 1st quartet dates from 1941, the 2nd from 1945 and was premiered on the actual day that Purcell died some 250 years earlier, and was Britten’s second contribution to the Purcell Anniversary, after The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. It’s a powerful work reflecting the composer’s shock at seeing first hand the concentration camps after the fall of the Nazis. Britten toured Germany with Yehudi Menuhin and what he saw left a lasting impression on him. The 3rd quartet is from 1975/6, and was premiered two weeks after his death – the quartet uses fragments of his last opera Death in Venice in the last movement. ‘brilliantly incisive and excellently balanced. In particular, the great first movement sounds much more radical than usual, simply because the players pay scrupulous attention to Britten's expression marks and relish the remarkable contrasts of tempo and texture.’ Gramophone, reviewing the 1st quartet , May 1991 ‘…..undeniably compelling readings.’ Gramophone, on the 2nd and 3rd quartets, December 1990 “This survey of Benjamin Britten's quartet music has tremendous authority and verve” BBC Music Magazine, September 2010 ***** | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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| |  | Amadeus Quartet
Recorded at The Maltings, Snape, Aldeburgh, 1977 “The filming is very straightforward… one mainly has an ideal view of the Amadeus Quartet, enabling one to see the way in which the musical line is passed from one instrument to another. In Schubert's Quartettsatz, which launched the first recital, the qualities of the Amadeus are highlighted, for good or ill: a rich, luscious sound, with Norbert Brainin not only the leader but very much the dominant personality...” BBC Music Magazine, November 2005 **** “These first Testament issues present a compelling case for DVDs of four chaps sitting on chairs.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2006 | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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