Escher String Quartet - Barber & Ives: String Quartets (2021) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Previous releases from the New York-based Escher Quartet include an acclaimed set of Mendelsohn’s six string quartets as well as an album with works by Dvořák, Tchaikovsky and Borodin. For their latest offering the members have looked closer to home, however, choosing to combine the quartets by Samuel Barber and Charles Ives. The disc opens with Barber’s String Quartet in B minor, containing the music for which the composer remains best-known: the second movement which he two years later expanded into Adagio for Strings. Recognizing its potential already while composing it, Barber described the piece as ‘a knock-out’ – which made it all the more difficult to come up with a third movement worthy to follow it. In the end he decided to make the quartet a two-movement work, but the Eschers have here included the lively third movement that the composer discarded, offering the opportunity to hear the work as it was once planned. Barber is followed by the two full-scale quartets by Charles Ives, as well as a brief Scherzo. Like many other compositions by Ives, his First Quartet makes extensive use of revival and gospel hymns, quoting them in all four movements in a highly accessible tonal idiom. Far more challenging, the Second Quartet is a portrayal of ‘four men / who converse, discuss, argue … fight, shake hands, shut up / then walk up the mountainside to view the firmament’ – a programme which invites a liberal use of dissonance, but also – towards the end – a particularly fulfilling resolution.

Tracklist:
01. Barber: String Quartet in B Minor, Op. 11: I. Molto allegro e appassionato
02. Barber: String Quartet in B Minor, Op. 11: II. Molto adagio
03. Barber: String Quartet in B Minor, Op. 11: III. Molto allegro come prima - Presto
04. Barber: String Quartet in B Minor, Op. 11: IV. Finale. Andante mosso, un poco agitato - Allegro molto, alla breve
05. Ives: String Quartet No. 1 "From the Salvation Army": I. Chorale. Andante con moto
06. Ives: String Quartet No. 1 "From the Salvation Army": II. Prelude. Allegro
07. Ives: String Quartet No. 1 "From the Salvation Army": III. Offertory. Adagio cantabile
08. Ives: String Quartet No. 1 "From the Salvation Army": IV. Postlude. Allegro marziale
09. Ives: A Set of 3 Short Pieces: No. 2, Holding Your Own! (Version for String Quartet)
10. Ives: String Quartet No. 2: I. Conversations and Discussions
11. Ives: String Quartet No. 2: II. Arguments
12. Ives: String Quartet No. 2: III. The Call of the Mountains


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