The heart of Beethoven's Quartet op. 132 is the 'Holy song of thanksgiving?, in which Beethoven takes up old counterpoint techniques and Gregorian simplicity. In this unusually beautiful and well preserved manuscript, Beethoven generously makes the most of the space on its pages. The lavish four colour printing allows the composer's occasionally unconventional manner of notation to come to life. I…

Debussy's new string quartet received a very cool reception at its première in Paris in December 1893, performed by the famous Quatuor Ysaÿe. The critics were upset by its unusual harmonies and orchestral sounds, and the musicians who were later presented with it considered it 'unplayable?. Nevertheless the work was able to establish itself in the years that followed and today belongs to the core …

Alban Berg's String Quartet can be considered to be one of the founding works of the Second Viennese School. Already composed in 1910 and first published in 1920, it was the last composition the 25-year-old wrote under the tutelage of Arnold Schoenberg, who admired 'the fullness and unconstraint of his musical language, the strength and sureness of its presentation, its careful working and signifi…

/ Brass Quartet

for String Quartet. Par ORFF CARL. Like the Quartettsatz of 1914 (ED 7816), Quartettsatz in c-Moll of 1921, premièred by the Henschel Quartet at the Orff Centre in Munich in 2007, testifies to Orff’s early struggles towards the classical-Romantic tradition. Originally left unfinished as a fragment in C sharp minor, the first version has now been reconstructed (in C minor) from a source that only s…