Ligeti: String Quartets & Barber: Adagio

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the Budapest-based Keller Quartet handle the individual demands of both composers thoughtfully. A cleaner, cooler, more controlled Barber I doubt you'll find: zero warbling vibrato, no emotive... — Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2013 More…

Release Date: 24th Jun 2013
Catalogue No: 4810026
Label: ECM
Series: New Series
Length: 50 minutes

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Ligeti: String Quartet No. 1 'Métamorphoses nocturnes'

Work length22:08

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Keller Quartet (string quartet), Andras Keller (violin), Zsófia Környei (violin), Zoltan Gal (viola), Judit Szabó (cello)
Recorded: 2007-06-26
Recording Venue: Radio Studio DRS, Zürich

Excerpt, Barber: String Quartet, Op. 11

Work length7:42

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Keller Quartet (string quartet), Andras Keller (violin), Zsófia Környei (violin), Zoltan Gal (viola), Judit Szabó (cello)
Recorded: 2007-06-26
Recording Venue: Radio Studio DRS, Zürich

2. Molto adagio

Track length7:42

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Ligeti: String Quartet No. 2

Work length21:00

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Keller Quartet (string quartet), Andras Keller (violin), Zsófia Környei (violin), Zoltan Gal (viola), Judit Szabó (cello)
Recorded: 2007-10-08
Recording Venue: Radio Studio DRS, Zürich

I. Allegro nervoso

Track length4:50

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II. Sostenuto, molto calmo

Track length4:48

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III. Come un meccanismo di precisione

Track length3:36

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IV. Presto furioso, brutale, tumultuoso

Track length2:10

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V. Allegro con delicatezza - stets sehr mild

Track length5:36

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About

The Keller Quartet’s association with ECM has yielded outstanding recordings, among them Bach’s Art of the Fugue, Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 15 and works by the ensemble’s mentor, György Kurtág. This release is another remarkable addition to the Budapest-based group’s discography, an album that bridges musical worlds. The Molto Adagio of Samuel Barber’s String Quartet No. 1 is offered as tonal terra firma between György Ligeti’s restlessly shifting First and Second Quartets, bracing creations of the 1950s and ’60s that - like the quartets of his great precursor, Bartók - are as mysterious as they are earthy.

Mid-20th century, Barber and Ligeti would have been considered aesthetic opposites.

“Ligeti was all about leaving what for Barber was solid home”, Paul Griffiths notes in the liner text. From a contemporary perspective both composers are voices from the past, their present-day relevance emphasised in these committed performances. “Physically actualized in the recording, the music is being all the time remade by the performers searching for what a motif can convey and finding an abundance of expressive contours in Ligeti’s quartets as much as in Barber’s. The gesture of lament is common to both.”

The first of the recordings heard on this album was made in 2007 on the first anniversary of Ligeti’s death, Hungary’s foremost string quartet paying tribute to the great innovator of modern Hungarian music. The 2011 recording of the second Ligeti quartet documents also a change in the line-up of András Keller’s ensemble, with Zsófia Környei, widely considered one of the outstanding violinists of her generation, replacing long-serving Keller Quartet member János Pilz.

Reviews

Awards Issue 2013

the Budapest-based Keller Quartet handle the individual demands of both composers thoughtfully. A cleaner, cooler, more controlled Barber I doubt you'll find: zero warbling vibrato, no emotive hard-sell.

13th July 2013

Tremendously abrasive, intense performances.

New York Times December 2013

Ligeti’s quartets are brimming over with them, by turns dark, playful or grotesque — and the members of the Keller Quartett play every note like their sanity depends on it. You wouldn’t think Barber’s luscious “Adagio” needed an advocate but here it’s played with an intensity bordering on desperation that reveals a new, urgent, side.

Ligeti: String Quartets & Barber: Adagio

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