All recordingsPrices shown exclude VAT. (UK tax is not payable for deliveries to United States.)
See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Grieg & Brahms: Introspective / Retrospective
The Hagen Quartet won the ECHO KLASSIC award in 2011 in the Ensemble of the Year category, for their previous release on myrios classics (Hagen Quartett 30 MYR 006). Here they present the second release commemorating their 30th anniversary and perform Grieg’s introspective String Quartet and Brahms’ retrospective Clarinet Quintet with Jörg Widmann. “any doubts as to the originality, vision and coherence of Grieg's turbulent score are immediately dispelled in this revelatory performance. The Hagen Quartet approach the music with no preconceptions, bringing an astonishingly fresh, imaginative control of sonority and a subtle variety of texture to each section...This is an outstanding release in every respect.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2012 “It would be hard to imagine a finer version of the sadly neglected Grieg Quartet...What is so winning is the natural, unforced flexibility of the Hagen's playing in the Grieg, making it sound totally idiomatic...In the Brahms, Widmann's clarinet is first among equals...Above all, the performance brings out the mellow, Brahmsian warmth of this late work.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2012  BBC Music Magazine
Chamber Choice - May 2012 |
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Grieg: String Quartets (arranged for String Orchestra)
Oslo Camerata, Stephan Barratt-Due Grieg’s String Quartet in G minor has long established itself as one of the finest such works of the second half of the nineteenth century. The distinction of its thematic material, and its use in cyclical form, is reinforced by an ultimately victorious motto theme. The F major Quartet was written later, but remained unfinished, but it too is a fertile creation with a strong dance profile. Both works are heard in Alf Årdal’s imaginative arrangements for string orchestra. Arne Nordheim, in his lifetime Norway’s leading living composer, wrote Rendezvous as a quartet but expanded it in 1986. It is an intense, moving, and beautifully crafted work. There are no other recordings of Årdal’s arrangements of Grieg in the catalogue. They are rich expansions, and should prove attractive to chamber orchestras which are, more and more, taking on quartet expansions into their repertoire. In his lifetime, Nordheim was Norway’s leading composer and his quartet, which he himself arranged for chamber orchestra, offers symmetry for the two Grieg quartets and also a modern day example of the country’s rich string music tradition. | | | (also available to download from $6.00) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  |
Cello Sonata recorded at Grieg's house at Troldhaugen, using Grieg's own piano. | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Grieg: Music for String Orchestra
On this disc, Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra play string works by Edvard Grieg. The ACO perform perennial favourites such as the Holberg Suite and the two Elegiac Melodies, Grieg’s own orchestrations of two of his best-loved songs: Last Spring and The Wounded Heart. The programme also includes Richard Tognetti’s adaptation of String Quartet No.1 and the ravishingly lyrical piano composition Erotikk from the composer’s celebrated collection of Lyric Pieces. Previous recordings with Tognetti and the ACO on BIS including Mozart’s violin concerti (BISSACD1754 and BISSACD1755), have been met with critical acclaim: Gramophone’s described the team as ‘an outstanding band’ with ‘a keen individual and collective feel for style and character’, and The Observer praised their ‘gloriously exciting, tangy edged, alert and playful sound.’ “Tognetti's masterstroke is to have fully assimilated all the characteristics of Grieg's scoring...Transferring this procedure to the Quartet serves to enhance dramatic impact on its music narrative...The Australian Chamber Orchestra delivers playing of incredible passion and precision. Tognetti's inspired direction brings every movement to life...A triumph in every respect.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2012 ***** “[the String Quartet is] a striking piece, driven and agitated on the one hand, sweetly lyrical on the other. The performers give it vitality and beauty and a programmatic narrative which compelling. The original solo lines are sometimes left as they were, rather poignantly so in the dramatic first movement...the Australians offer a spirited and sensitive account [of the Two Elegiac Melodies].” International Record Review, June 2012 “The Australian Chamber Orchestra is renowned for its crisp, clean playing, superb ensemble and intonation, and vivacious style...[The Elegiac Melodies and Holberg Suite] have dozens of rivals but, while one might find equally fine renditions, I doubt there are many better ones. Excellent sound, as usual from this label.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2012 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
|
|
| |  | Norwegian Romantic Chamber Music
An original pairing of composers who were compatriots and friends and who imposed the Romantic Norwegian school on Europe in the years 1872-1900. Grieg's career as a pianist was more modest then Svendsen the violinist's: the latter also outshone him as a conductor. A century later, the audience of the composer of Peer Gynt is universal, whereas Svendsen's oeuvre remains confined to Scandinavian concert halls. This is the first modern recording of his Octet, a youthful score enlivened by its borrowings from folklore. “their playing is vigorous and expressive. The tone of each instrument has real character, so that in the second-movement Romanza, for example, where the melody is passed around, each phrase has its own colour...[the Svendsen] is an admirably vital, well-integrated account.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2011 “[The Kocian Quartet's] tonal finesse, refinement of phrasing, sensitivity to the constant play of bittersweet emotion that underpins the work even at its most apparently extrovert, are all exemplary. The recording is both lively and full bodied...What distinguishes the issue, however, is the coupling...it has a freshness and confidence and remarkably assured handling of counterpoint that compel admiration.” International Record Review, March 2011 | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Grieg - String Quartets
‘High-class playing and recording’ (Gramophone) “The First Quartet is dense, intense, and given its full due in this grand reading. Striking account, too, of one of Grieg's incomplete Second, semi-completed by Levon Chilingirian.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2007 ***** | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Intimate Voices
“…a strong, sympathetic performance of Sibelius's one mature quartet, Voces Intimae, can make you regret that he didn't stick with the medium. …it's good to hear this music taken so seriously, and so shaped so powerfully. The recordings are as fine as this truly outstanding playing deserves.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2006 ***** “In the Grieg, a powerful, emphatic style highlights the music's passionate intensity. …a magnificent performance… of the Sibelius… with a deeply felt Adagio and, in the finale, playing of such poise, crispness and vitality as to outpace even the 1930s Budapest.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2006 | | | Usually despatched in 8 - 10 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Grieg: String Quartets
| | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
|
|
| |  | Grieg - Complete Music for String Quartet
| | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
|
|
| |  |
“Persuasively played by the Oslo String Quartet and is impeccably recorded.” Penguin Guide | | | (also available to download from $6.00) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
|
|
| |
|
