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Ligeti - String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2

Parker Quartet

Awards:

Here is another relatively new quartet plunging into the recording fray with 'high-end' repertory and reaping the rewards of their apparent fearlessness...the recordings have the conviction...

Ligeti - String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2

Parker Quartet

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Awards:

Here is another relatively new quartet plunging into the recording fray with 'high-end' repertory and reaping the rewards of their apparent fearlessness...the recordings have the conviction...

About

György Ligeti’s choral and orchestral music hit the mainstream when it was featured in the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but his equally remarkable chamber works remain less well known.

While indebted to his compatriot Bartók for its folk-inflected passages, Ligeti’s First Quartet, subtitled Métamorphoses nocturnes, is nonetheless a work of striking originality.

The Second Quartet, composed around fifteen years later, abounds in contrasts between glacial stillness and manic activity, mechanistic pizzicatos and gentle oscillations.

His early Andante and Allegro is richly expressive and easily accessible.

“The Parker Quartet is equally persuasive at both extremes… in Ligeti’s two full-fledged quartets, these musicians brought considerable warmth and richness of tone to sweetly accented themes and gentle chordal writing, and unbridled textural brashness to the more volatile passages.” The New York Times

Contents and tracklist

Allegro grazioso - Presto
Track length7:17
Prestissimo - Andante tranquillo
Track length4:38
Tempo di valse, moderato, con eleganza, un poco capriccioso - Allegretto, un poco gioviale
Track length5:06
Subito allegro con moto - Prestissimo
Track length6:05
I. Allegro nervoso
Track length4:54
II. Sostenuto, molto calmo
Track length5:03
III. Come un meccanismo di precisione
Track length3:10
IV. Presto furioso, brutale, tumultuoso
Track length2:23
V. Allegro con delicatezza
Track length5:23
Andante cantabile
Track length5:17
Allegretto poco capriccioso
Track length6:24

Spotlight on this release

Awards and reviews

  • Gramophone Magazine
    April 2010
    Editor's Choice
  • Grammy Awards
    53rd Awards (2010)
    Best Chamber Music Recording

April 2010

Here is another relatively new quartet plunging into the recording fray with 'high-end' repertory and reaping the rewards of their apparent fearlessness...the recordings have the conviction and character of single takes...The Parkers...make one eager to hear more contemporary repertoire from them

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