Henryk Górecki - String Quartets (Royal String Quartet)

Information

Composer: Henryk Górecki

CD1:

• Already it is dusk (String Quartet No. 1), Op. 62
• Quasi una fantasia (String Quartet No. 2), Op. 64

CD2:

• … songs are sung (String Quartet No. 3), Op 67

Royal String Quartet
Izabella Szałaj-Zimak, violin
Elwira Przybyłowska, violin
Marek Czech, viola
Michał Pepol, cello

Date: 2011
Label: Hyperion
https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67812

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Review

The string quartets of a Polish master receive potent new performances

String quartets occupied Henryk Górecki intensively in his later years. Inspired by lines from a Renaissance motet, Already it is dusk (1988) is a compact single movement whose ideas – with folk and sacred overtones – alternate equivocally before conflicting in a fraught central section and moving apart in the resigned conclusion. With a variety of allusions to Beethoven, Quasi una fantasia (1991) unfolds over four movements – the funereal tread of its Largo making way for an often aggressive Deciso then an eloquent Arioso, before the Allegro attempts a synthesis fulfilled only by a fatalistic return to the beginning. Largely completed in 1995, …songs are sung – its title drawn from a poem by Velimir Khlebnikov – was only released for performance a decade later. Here the musical evolution is sustained over 55 minutes, with only a brief Allegro to offset the introspection of movements either side, themselves framed by a searching threnody and a finale that does not so much resolve accumulated tensions as dissolve them into nothingness.

All three works were composed for the Kronos Quartet, whose recordings still serve them admirably. Yet the visceral quality of the Royal Quartet’s renditions points up emotional contrasts in the first two quartets rather more readily, while their emotional commitment makes the finale of the Third Quartet feel more an intended apotheosis than an extended postlude. Those possessing the earlier discs need to not rush to change. But, with its ideal quartet sound and informative booklet-notes, this would be the preferred choice.

-- Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone

More reviews:
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: ***** / SOUND: *****

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2011/Apr11/goreckiSQ_hyperioncda67812.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2011/May11/Gorecki_qts_CDA67812.htm

http://classicalsource.com/db_control/db_cd_review.php?id=9296

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/album-reviews/g%C3%B3recki-string-quartets-1-3-1.570847

https://www.allmusic.com/album/g%C3%B3recki-the-three-string-quartets-mw0002126891

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gorecki-String-Quartets-Royal-Quartet/dp/B004NWHVNA

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Henryk Górecki (December 6, 1933 – November 12, 2010) was a Polish composer of contemporary classical music. Górecki was a leading figure of the Polish avant-garde during the post-Stalin cultural thaw. After composed serialist works in 1950s and 1960s, by the mid-1970s he changed to a less complex sacred minimalist sound, exemplified by the transitional Symphony No. 2 and the hugely popular Symphony No. 3. The 1992 recording of the 3th Symphony with Dawn Upshaw and David Zinman became a worldwide commercial and critical success, selling more than a million copies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henryk_G%C3%B3recki

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The Royal String Quartet was formed at the Warsaw Academy of Music in 1998. After 20 years of joint music-making, the Quartet has made 17 internationally acclaimed records, received six-time nominees and twice winners of the ‘Fryderyk’ award, given concerts on all continents and won themselves a loyal audience. The musicians started their collaboration with Hyperion Records in 2008, and has become leading ambassadors of the Polish culture. The ensemble’s recordings of quartets by Szymanowski, Różycki, Górecki, Penderecki and Lutosławski have been highly acclaimed by critics.
https://royalstringquartet.pl/

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