Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Schoenberg, Webern, Berg: The String Quartet and the Voice


“The extreme refinement and minutely focused intensity, in recordings to match, make the Webern a singularly beautiful, if somewhat unsettling experience...Marie-Nicole Lemieux's voluptuous pianissimo is perfect for this paradoxically remote-revealing music. She also makes a good case for the vocal version of the finale of Berg's Lyric Suite...as for the Schoenberg: it's good to be reminded how much beauty there is in this astonishing score.” --BBC Music Magazine, August 2011 *****/***





“The Diotima are perfectly at home in this music, cooler than some quartets in the Schoenberg and Berg but wonderful at realising all the teeming detail in both works, and the microscopic gestures of the Webern.” --The Guardian, 4th March 2011 ****

“[Lemieux] is darkly eloquent with the long-suppressed Baudelaire text embedded in the extraordinary finale of Berg’s Lyric Suite.” --Sunday Times, 6th March 2011 ***

“I certainly wouldn't argue for the vocal version [of the Lyric Suite] as a permanent replacement...But in a performance of the whole work as richly characterised and technically assured as this one by the Quatuor Diotima, I'm happy to make an exception. The quartets by Webern and Schoenberg are done with equal flair, and in Schoenberg's Second there's a rare chance to hear the peerless Sandrine Piau in post-Wagnerian vein” --Gramophone Magazine, August 2011

MP3 320 · 141 MB

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