David MATTHEWS: Complete String Quartets, Volume Four

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(2 customer reviews)

Catalogue No: TOCC0318
EAN/UPC: 5060113443182
Release Date: 2016-02-01
Composer: David Matthews
Artists: Kreutzer Quartet

The American critic Robert Reilly described the music on Volume One of this cycle of the complete string quartets of David Matthews (b. 1943) as ‘some of the most concentrated, penetrating writing for this medium in the past 30 years or more. It is musical thinking of the highest order and quartet writing in the great tradition of Beethoven, Bartók, Britten, and Tippett’. This fourth CD in the series presents Matthews’ String Quartet No. 11, a set of variations on the eighth of Beethoven’s Op. 119 Bagatelles, as well as his own contribution to the ‘Diabelli’ Variations and his complete Beethoven transcriptions for string quartet.

Kreutzer Quartet

Listen To This Recording:

    Bagatelles, Op. 119:

  1. 1 Allegretto
  2. 2 Andante con moto
  3. 3 A l’Allemande
  4. 4 Andante cantabile
  5. 5 Risoluto
  6. 6 Andante/Allegretto
  7. 7 Allegro, ma non troppo
  8. 8 Moderato cantabile
  9. 9 Vivace moderato
  10. 10 Allegramente
  11. 11 Andante, ma non troppo
  12. Diabelli Variation

  13. Diabelli Variation
  14. Complete Beethoven Transcriptions
    Piano Sonata 28 in A major, Op. 101:

  15. I Etwas lebhaft und mit der innigsten Empfindung
  16. II Lebhaft. Marschmassig
  17. III Langsam und sehnsuchtsvoll
  18. IV Geschwind, doch nicht zu sehr und mit Entschlossenheit
  19. Piano Sonata 11 in B flat major, Op. 22:

  20. II Adagio con molta espressione
  21. David Matthews
    String Quartet No. 11, Op. 108:

  22. Theme: Allegretto cantabile
  23. Var 1: Listesso tempo
  24. Var 2: Poco piu moderato
  25. Var 3: Presto
  26. Var 4: Allegro strepitoso
  27. Var 5: Tempo di tango feroce
  28. Var 6: Con moto languido
  29. Var 7: Misterioso
  30. Var 8: Tempo di mazurka
  31. Var 9: Scorrevole
  32. Var 10 Sostenuto
  33. Var 11: Quieto
  34. Var 12: Cavatina: Adagio
  35. Var 13: Fuga: Molto Vivace
  36. Var 13: Fuga: Andante tranquillo
  37. Var 13: Fuga: Tempo primo

2 reviews for David MATTHEWS: Complete String Quartets, Volume Four

  1. :

    ‘Beethoven has been a lifelong source of inspiration for David Matthews, so it was natural for him to take a bagatelle by his hero as the starting point for his own monumental String Quartet No 11, a set of 13 variations, similar in scale to Beethoven’s late B flat Op 130 and C sharp minor Op 131 quartets. It’s a startling, broad work, travelling towards its blazingly optimistic finale via all manner of dance forms and even a touch of serialism, with a profound reworking of the cavatina from the Op 130 quartet at its core. It’s a tremendous achievement; revering Beethoven while taking him gently by the hand and leading him into the 21st century.’

    —Stephen Pritchard, The Guardian

  2. :

    ‘Listening to Matthews’s versions of the op. 119 Bagatelles and the 28th Piano Sonata you have the slightly unnerving sensation that you’re listening to recently discovered—and undoubtedly authentic—original Beethoven works […] everything sounds exactly the way Beethoven would do it were he writing for string quartet. Each of the bagatelles emerge with even more color and character than they can manage in the original piano versions, while the sonata becomes one of Beethoven’s most engaging late quartets. (Matthews’s incredible skill almost forces you to begin thinking that way.)’

    —Jim Svejda, Fanfare Magazine, June 2016

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