Debussy & Ravel: String Quartets

Debussy and Ravel: String Quartets

Regular price £12.99
Total playing time [54:57]

Listen on Apple Music    Listen on Spotify

Eroica Quartet

Following the immense success of their first release on Resonus Classics, the renowned Eroica Quartet release an album of String Quartets by Ravel and Debussy.

Released to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Debussy’s birth, this album represents the first modern recording of the works to feature performances on gut strings and with aspects of period performance.

Over many years the Eroica quartet has successfully established itself as a pioneering group in the rediscovery of nineteenth-century performing techniques and styles by directly challenging the modern assumptions about performance of music from the era. The influence of the early nineteenth-century approach to vibrato, portamento and bowing styles remained largely intact until the 1920s and it is these period techniques to which the quartet turns in order to offer fresh insight into the works.

Album booklet (PDF)

Tracklist

Maurice Ravel
String Quartet
1. Allegro moderato: très doux
2. Assez vif: très rhythmé
3. Très lent
4. Vif et agité

Claude Debussy
String Quartet, Op. 10
5. Animé et tres décidé
6. Assez vif et bien rhythmé
7. Andantino: doucement expressif
8. Très modéré

‘Refreshingly rethought interpretations of a classic quartet coupling [...] thought-provoking deeply satisfying performances’

- The Strad ('The Strad Recommends')

‘Refreshingly rethought interpretations of a classic quartet coupling [...] thought-provoking deeply satisfying performances'
The Strad ('The Strad Recommends')

'The Eroica Quartet give us the first modern recording of these works to feature gut strings. They certainly succeed in underlining the lyric warmth of both works; the expression is strong but comfortable at every point, in contrast to so many modern quartet performances that overemphasize the dramatic.'
Classical Ear

'[...] there is extraordinary clarity to each part and to the ensemble’s playing as a whole. Owing in large part to the gut strings, there is also a sweetness to the Eroica’s sound that is quite appealing and, I believe, appropriate for these scores.'
Fanfare

'The group's selling point is its use of gut strings [...] for the Eroica tonal colour is a particular priority [...] intensified by muted colours and expressive portamentos [...] Their pizzicato, such a vital component in the second movement of both quartets, is lithe and telling too.'
Gramophone

'The Ravel is marked by high levels of contrast, particularly the sense of attack in the final movement set against the gentle pizzicato of the second movement [...] The Debussy is equally appealing and I particularly enjoyed the rather languorous approach to the Andantino.'
Lark Reviews

'[...] the quartet delivers an interpretation that is riveting and vivid'
HiRes Review

Credits
© 2012 Resonus Limited
Ⓟ 2012 Peter Hanson
Catalogue No. RES10107
Producer, engineer & editor: Adrian Hunter
Executive producer: Adam Binks
EAN: 5060262790069
Cover Image: Tour Eiffel & Exposition Universelle, Paris, France, 1889 (Photochrom print by Photoglob Zürich) - Flickr.com