Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach, David Matthews
Performer: Kreutzer Quartet
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata Classics
Catalogue: TOCC0732
Release: 2024
Size: 2.3 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Matthews: String Quartet No. 8, Op. 75
01. I. Leggiero con moto
02. II. Vivo
03. III. Adagio sostenuto
Matthews: String Quartet No. 16, Op. 161
04. Andante con moto –
05. Molto vivace –
06. Lento con molto espressione
Matthews: String Quartet No. 17, Op. 164
07. I. Flamboyant
08. II. Vivace
09. III. Adagio
10. IV. Andante con moto – Allegro con brio
Bach: Prelude and Fugue in B Minor, BWV 869 (Arr. for String Quartet by David Matthews)
11. I. Praeludium
12. II. Fuga
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’. The three works in this sixth volume of Matthews’ complete string quartets cover a quarter of a century but share the same basic features, not least a mastery of counterpoint, an impassioned lyricism, a sublimated hint of folksong and occasionally a sly sense of humour, all deployed to touch something essential in the listener. Matthews begins his booklet note with this release by saluting ‘my now nearly 30-year relationship with the Kreutzer Quartet, which has been as invaluable to me as Shostakovich’s with the Borodin Quartet, or Beethoven’s with the Schuppanzigh Quartet’.