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Rosamunde Quartett, The Hilliard Ensemble - Boris Yoffe: Song Of Songs (2011)

Posted By: Designol
Rosamunde Quartett, The Hilliard Ensemble - Boris Yoffe: Song Of Songs (2011)

Rosamunde Quartett, The Hilliard Ensemble - Boris Yoffe: Song Of Songs (2011)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 213 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 150 Mb | Scans included
Classical, Chamber, Vocal | Label: ECM | # ECM New Series 2174, 476 4426 | Time: 00:52:34

Boris Yoffee was born in Russia in 1968. There, he studied violin and composition and before the breakup of the Soviet Union he immigrated to Israel, where he studied at Tel Aviv University. In 1997, he moved to Germany to study composition with Wolfgang Rihm. By 2009, he had amassed an enormous number of short works. Thus, the performers who had been asked to record his Song of Songs looked through approximately 800 of them in order to select the pieces they wanted to perform. The Rosamunde Quartet is a German string quartet that was formed in 1992; since the group disbanded in 2010, this is its last recording. The Hilliard Ensemble is a British male vocal quartet that is well known for its performance of Renaissance, medieval, and contemporary music. It has often performed the works of Arvo Pärt, whose music is somewhat similar to that of Yoffe.

Valentin Silvestrov - Leggiero, Pesante (2002)

Posted By: Designol
Valentin Silvestrov - Leggiero, Pesante (2002)

Valentin Silvestrov - Leggiero, Pesante (2002)
Rosamunde Quartett; Anja Lechner, cello; Silke Avenhaus, piano;
Simon Fordham, violin; Maacha Deubner, soprano

EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 220 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 169 Mb | Scans included
Classical | Label: ECM | # ECM New Series 1776, 461 898-2 | Time: 01:10:30

Valentin Silvestrov is hardly a household name in the United States; however, in the Ukraine, he enjoys a similar standing to that of his Estonian counterpart Arvo Pärt. But that is where the resemblance ends. Whereas Pärt in his holy minimalism reinvents techniques that derive from Renaissance practice, Silvestrov's roots are planted in late Romanticism. His music is steeped in all of the emotion and drama that such a stylistic association would imply. Leggiero, pesante is a collection of Silvestrov's chamber music, and as an introduction to the musical world of Silvestrov, this ECM New Series release admirably fits the bill. Most impressive are the performances of the Sonata for violoncello and piano (1983) and the third Postludium by cellist Anja Lechner and pianist Silke Avenhaus. In these works, Silvestrov strives toward a synthetic union between the two instruments. Lechner and Avenhaus achieve this end spectacularly well and manage to blanket the performances in an emotional sensitivity that gives voice to Silvestrov's intentions, yet retains the personality of the performers.

Christian Gerhaher, Rosamunde Quartett - Othmar Schoeck: Notturno (2009)

Posted By: Designol
Christian Gerhaher, Rosamunde Quartett - Othmar Schoeck: Notturno (2009)

Christian Gerhaher, Rosamunde Quartett - Othmar Schoeck: Notturno (2009)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 179 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 105 Mb | Scans included
Classical, Vocal | Label: ECM | # ECM New Series 2061, 476 6995 | 00:42:55

Although being generally acknowledged as one of the leading composers of his native Switzerland, Othmar Schoeck (1886–1957) has never acquired a stable reputation outside the German-speaking world. This is partly due to his strong focus on the sung word: His output comprises eight operas, some 400 songs and a couple of smaller works for instrumental forces. Moreover, Schoeck’s essentially late-romantic style was considered démodé after the second world war when the avant-garde was arguing for a more rational and emotionally restricted approach to composition. One of his most personal works is the “Notturno” for baritone voice and string quartet. Written between 1931 and 1933 it served as a personal confession after an unhappy extra-marital love affair. Its five movements set verses by German 19th-century-poet Nikolaus Lenau and by the great Swiss writer Gottfried Keller. The highly differentiated interpretation by baritone Christian Gerhaher – one of the most distinguished young German “Lied” singers and a former disciple of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau – and the Rosamunde Quartett offers a strong plea for Schoeck’s expressive music and sheds an exciting light on his artistic preoccupation with the dark abysses of human existence.

Rosamunde Quartett, Thomas Demenga, Christoph Poppen, Andrea Lauren Brown - Thomas Larcher: IXXU (2006)

Posted By: Designol
Rosamunde Quartett, Thomas Demenga, Christoph Poppen, Andrea Lauren Brown - Thomas Larcher: IXXU (2006)

Thomas Larcher - IXXU (2006)
Rosamunde Quartett; Thomas Demenga, violoncello;
Christoph Poppen, violin; Andrea Lauren Brown, soprano

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 220 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 164 Mb | Scans included
Label: ECM | # ECM New Series 1967, 476 3156 | Time: 00:53:57
Classical, Contemporary, Modern Composition

The four chamber works by Austrian Thomas Larcher recorded here show that's he's a composer to watch out for. His compositional voice is strikingly unencumbered by adherence to any orthodoxy, and his work is direct in its emotional and intellectual communication. My Illness Is the Medicine I Need, for soprano, violin, cello, and piano, is particularly effective; its aphoristic texts come from a Benetton "Colors" magazine that included photographs of psychiatric hospitals and quotations from their patients. Larcher's understated text setting allows the voices of the patients to be heard with unaffected bleakness and it is strongly moving. Even though it uses a contemporary harmonic language, the string quartet Ixxu (1998-2004) is old-fashioned in its emotional clarity. Its last movement, "ruhig," is genuinely peaceful and brings to mind the serenity of Arvo Pärt's Fratres. His 1990 quartet Cold Farmer is similarly direct and generous in inviting the listener in, and here again the slow movement is especially deeply felt and engaging.

Rosamunde Quartett - Joseph Haydn: The Seven Last Words of Jesus Christ (2001)

Posted By: Designol
Rosamunde Quartett - Joseph Haydn: The Seven Last Words of Jesus Christ (2001)

Rosamunde Quartett - Joseph Haydn: The Seven Words (2001)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 286 Mb | Scans included | Time: 01:06:09
Classical, Chamber | Label: ECM | # ECM New Series 1756, 461 780-2

On this recording of The Seven Words, the Rosamunde String Quartet offers a compelling rendition of one of Haydn's most complex compositions. The Seven Words was originally composed for a full orchestra as a series of seven adagios, which were meant to be interludes during a congregation's meditations on the last seven words of Christ on the Cross. Haydn struggled with a way to compose seven connected pieces of music that were solemn and yet varied enough to keep the listener from getting bored. The members of the Rosamunde Quartet are technically brilliant as they demonstrate the composer's solutions to this musical puzzle. Even though the tempo is slow, they never let the music become ponderous or oppressive. But to Haydn, The Seven Words was more than just an aural conundrum. He felt the composition was perhaps his most sacred work, and the quartet plays this music with reverence for the composer's spiritual intentions. This is a profound piece of music, and the Rosamunde does it justice on each of its many levels.

Rosamunde Quartett - Anton Webern, Dmitri Shostakovich, Emil Frantisek Burian (1997)

Posted By: Designol
Rosamunde Quartett - Anton Webern, Dmitri Shostakovich, Emil Frantisek Burian (1997)

Rosamunde Quartett - Anton Webern, Dmitri Shostakovich, Emil Frantisek Burian (1997)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 200 Mb | Scans included | Time: 00:46:37
Classical | Label: ECM | # ECM New Series 1629, 457 067-2

String quartet fans will relish this excellent release from ECM. Although the Shostakovich 8th is one of the most over-recorded pieces in the string quartet literature, the performance here is worth having, and is combined with a somewhat familiar but not as widely recorded piece by Webern (for those who might be afraid to listen to anything by Webern, let me assure you that this is a most lovely, lyrical, hauntingly beautiful work, not at all daunting) and a quartet by a composer that will be unfamiliar to most, Emil Burian (1904-1959), whose String Quartet No. 4 is a haunting piece that makes for an attractive finish for this fine CD by the Rosamunde Quartet. The sound quality is rich and radiant in the best ECM tradition.