Quatuor Ebene - 'round Midnight

Antoine Tamestit, Nicolas Altstaedt, Quatuor Ebene

Dream sounds and nocturnal abysses: Quatuor Ébène and their album 'round midnight When the renowned and multiple award-winning Quatuor Ébène plays, one can expect more than venerable chamber music repertoire - which, of course, the four of them also know how to interpret inimitably alongside all their stylistic excursions: The latest album, 'round midnight, brings together the quartet's many sides in a program inspired by the night - with two highly expressive 20th-century works and a new composition by Ébène cellist Raphaël Merlin. Arnold Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht, completed as a string sextet in 1899, evokes an atmosphere in a hypnotically sultry, highly condensed musical language that for the first time hints at modernist techniques free of key references. Quatuor Ébène is supported here by violist Antoine Tamestit and cellist Nicolas Altstaedt. Together, the six musicians here open a new chapter for this rarely performed version of the original string orchestra work. This is juxtaposed with Henri Dutilleux's Ainsi la Nuit from 1976 (among the most important chamber music works by the composer, who died in 2013) - a sequence of night impressions made sound. Raphaël Merlin's Night bridge, also for sextet and composed especially for this album, was created explicitly as a connecting bridge between these works. Incorporating jazz standards with night-related themes (such as Moon River), it takes listeners from Schoenberg's world into Dutilleux's with great richness of colour. All three works thus combine to create an unprecedented album.

Price: $25.98

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