PRICE:
$15.50
IN STOCK
ARTIST
TITLE
String Quartets Nos. 4 & 5
FORMAT
CD/SACD

LABEL
CATALOG #
NEOS 11618CD NEOS 11618CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
2/24/2017

E. H. Flammer presents two enormous works, asking the listener for intense and long-lasting attention -- with String Quartet No. 4 lasting about ten minutes longer than even Beethoven's famous Op. 132 -- but once it begins the listener will be unable to think of anything else. Voyage éternel de l'oiseau de feu (The journey through time of the firebird), evokes that ever-inquisitive creature, always on the way to new shores, pouncing with carefree verve on the new, which stands for an obsession with a journey into the infinite, harshly interrupted time and again by the "troublemaker" (Kurt Schwitters's "error in the system"), yet finally departing forever into the virtual, into the open. The Jade Quartett -- Hanlin Liang, violin; Hyunji You, violin; Igor Michalski, viola; Shihyu You-Holz, cello -- takes its name not only from the substance, but is also a portmanteau of "Ja" (a romanization of the Mandarin word for "Asia") and "DE," the country code of the ensemble's adopted country of Germany. This connection is also programmatic for the quartet, which is especially concerned with performing works from their Asian homeland as well as the classical European quartet repertoire.