Prism I - Beethoven, Shostakovich, Bach

Danish String Quartet

EN / DE
For its third ECM release, the prize-winning Danish String Quartet inaugurates a series of five albums with the overarching title of Prism, in which the group will present one of Beethoven’s late string quartets in the context of a related fugue by J.S. Bach as well as a linked masterwork from the quartet literature.
With Prism 1, it’s the first of Beethoven’s late quartets, op. 127 in E-flat Major, alongside Bach’s fugue in the same key (arranged by Mozart) and Dmitri Shostakovich’s final string quartet, the No. 15 in E-flat minor.
Mit seinem dritten ECM-Release eröffnet das Danish String Quartet eine Serie von fünf Alben unter dem Titel Prism. Dabei wird je eines von Beethovens späten Streichquartetten in den Kontext eines verwandten Stücks gestellt: einer Fuge von J.S. Bach sowie eines weiteren Meisterwerk aus der Quartett-Literatur. Prism 1 präsentiert das erste der späten Beethoven-Quartette , op. 127 in Es-Dur, Bachs Fuge in gleicher Tonart (von Mozart arrangiert) und Dmitri Shostakovichs letztes Streichquartett Nr. 15 in Es-Moll.
Featured Artists Recorded

November 2016, Reitstadel, Neumarkt

Original Release Date

21.09.2018

  • The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II
    (Johann Sebastian Bach)
  • 1Fugue in E-flat major, BWV 87602:02
  • String Quartet No. 15 in E-flat minor, op. 144
    (Dmitri Shostakovich)
  • 2Elegy. Adagio13:27
  • 3Serenade. Adagio06:11
  • 4Intermezzo. Adagio01:36
  • 5Nocturne. Adagio04:23
  • 6Funeral March. Adagio molto05:03
  • 7Epilogue. Adagio06:49
  • String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat major, op. 127
    (Ludwig van Beethoven)
  • 8Maestoso - Allegro06:45
  • 9Adagio, ma non troppo e molto cantabile16:23
  • 10Scherzo. Vivace08:24
  • 11Finale. Allegro07:06
The performances are beautiful, with the quartet shifting effortlessly from smooth, almost glassy textures to violent paroxysms. The Bach fugue that opens the program (Mozart's arrangement is used, which works well with the overall concept) sets a meditative space, and the Shostakovich, edgy and violent, and the Beethoven, mysteriously lyrical, form a compelling pair. Sample the Beethoven slow movement to hear the silent, spacious acoustic treatment given the Reitstadel Neumarkt by the ECM engineering staff, who have outdone themselves here. One awaits with pleasure future releases in the series.
James Manheim, All Music
 
Dreimal das Es als Tonika – und dreimal famoses Quartettspiel: Das Danish String Quartet erweist sich als Meisterensemble mit seinem Konzeptalbum ‚Prism 1‘, der Eröffnung einer Serie, bei der eine Bach-Fuge und ein spätes Beethoven-Quartett jeweils ein weiteres Werk umschließen. Großartig, wie ausgewogen und klar, dynamisch differenziert und sauber die vier die Notentexte auffächern; […] Und in Beethovens ‚Opus 127‘ vereinen sich nicht nur im großen Adagio Innigkeit und markante Rhythmik zu einer Lesart, so konturiert und klar wie ein Bergkristall.
Walter Weidringer, Crescendo
 
Ganz abgesehen vom durchaus spannenden Konzept der Reihe, aus dem Auftakt, Beethovens Es-Dur-Quartett op.127, machen die vier Jungs aus Dänemark ein Versprechen für die Zukunft. Sie mögen sich im Beiheft immer noch als eine Art Boygroup sehen, wenn auch nicht mehr ganz so jung. An musikalischer Reife sind sie weit darüber hinaus, musizieren mit einer fantastischen Mischung aus Wildheit und Disziplin, Klangschönheit und Expressivität, Versunkenheit und Extrovertiertheit. Das kann ein sehr spannender später Beethoven werden.
Oswald Beaujean, Bayerischer Rundfunk
 
The playing and interpretation do Beethoven proud. The key-related Bach-Mozart Fugue and Shostakovich’s 15th Quartet (1974) come off equally well, the latter having been described elsewhere as a meditation on life (and not always that introspective), and while the present programming context will be stimulating for a handful of visits, thereafter the performances will need to stand-alone among their various rivals. They should do well. Annotations for the present release, which is the first in a series called ‘Prism’ (‘late’ Beethoven plus a contemporary work), are wonderfully insightful. A bold and satisfying release.
Rob Cowan, Classical Ear
 
These players perform Bach’s Fugue BWV876 with intelligence and sophistication, their relaxed, intuitive approach to texture, sonority and phrasing allowing contrapuntal transparency. Their powerfully characterized account of Beethoven’s op.127 focuses on the slow movement’s moving variations, expressively realized, but their first movement is pleasingly paced, with notation scrupulously observed and sonorities skilfully blended, and they invest the jaunty scherzo with suitably rhythmic dynamism. […] The recording is well balanced, the acoustic providing both ambience and intimacy.
Robin Stowell, The Strad
 
Während die Fuge sehr klassisch und zurückhaltend gespielt wird, erklingt Shostakovich umso aufgewühlter und ekstatischer. Dabei gewährleisten die vier Musiker natürlich bei allem Engagement eine handwerklich außerordentlich gelungene Darbietung, die es mit jedem qualitativ hochwertigen Quartett aufnehmen kann. Das Es-Dur Quartett op. 127 von Beethoven wird dann wieder relativ behutsam und ausgewogen dargestellt. Diese wohlklingende Deutung wirft ein dezenteres, aber ebenso spannendes Licht auf dieses Werk, als es bei anderen Ensembles der Fall ist. Wieder einmal könnte man meinen, dass junge Künstler ein Werk befreit vom Ballast der Aufführungsgeschichte präsentieren. Das kann schief gehen, oder auch, wie hier, sehr gut.
Uwe Krusch, Pizzicato
 
The whole approach invites active, committed listening, from the wistful introspection of the Shostakovich to the extended, dazzling complexities of the Beethoven. The group plays with virtuosity, intensity and tenderness. With notes by the quartet and writer Paul Griffiths, and photographs of manuscript pages from the works in question, this is a thoughtful entity.
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
 
These players perform Bach’s Fugue BWV876 with intelligence and sophistication, their relaxed, intuitive approach to texture, sonority and phrasing allowing contrapuntal transparency. Their powerfully characterized account of Beethoven’s op.127 focuses on the slow movement’s moving variations, expressively realized, but their first movement is pleasingly paced, with notation scrupulously observed and sonorities skilfully blended, and they invest the jaunty scherzo with suitably rhythmic dynamism. […] The six unsettling Adagio movements of Shostakovich’s death-ridden, valedictory op.144 are realized with intensity and wide-ranging instrumental colour, from the sombre, contemplative Elegy, through the Serenade’s strikingly characterised anguish and ironic waltz to the Intermezzo, its violin cadenza powerfully delivered by Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen. The impressionistic Nocturne and the initially impassioned Funeral March, punctuated by striking solos, lead to an Epilogue of reminiscences played with an unusual understanding, sympathy and feeling. The recording is well balanced, the acoustic providing both ambience and intimacy.
Robin Stowell, The Strad
 
When the Danish String Quartet first encountered late Beethoven it felt to them (as they explain in the booklet) ‘as if it had fallen down from outer space onto our music stands’. This new release is an attempt to recapture that sense of strangeness, the idea being to use Beethoven as a ‘prism’ through which to revisit earlier and later music. Here, the Quartet Op 127 refracts a Bach fugue and Shostakovich’s Quartet No 15, with the tonality of E flat as the common element. […] while the playing is exquisitely refined, this performance never loses its sense of rhythmic danger. These aren’t warm interpretations; they repel as readily as they attract. But they’re thought-provoking, and often startingly beautiful.
Richard Bratby, Gramophone
 
Poise, elegant restraint and an exacting adherence to the scores are the essence of this superb recording. Bach’s Fugue is played with appropriate reserve as a prelude to the Shostakovich. It could easily be more playful, but that’s not what this programme is about. Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 15 is a serious prospect, and the Danish Quartet plays with hardly any vibrato, the long opening Elegy a moment in time suspended to a kind of infinity. Lack of vibrato should not be confused with a lack of expression here however. This playing has a purity that takes us deeply into Shostakovich’s melancholy mood, and the subtle touches of vibrato we are given heighten this effect while delivering the essence of the music rather than showcasing the players. […] with an intriguing and impressively effective concept and such superlative performances this Prism series looks like becoming one every string quartet collector should covet.
Dominy Clements, Music Web
 
Dans le ‘Quatuor en mi bémol mineur‘ de Chostakovitch, […] le compositeur réussit à donner à un même tempo lent des inflexions trés  diverses, sur lesquelles plane un sentiment panique de mort. A la favuer d’une grande precision d’archet et d’une volonté  d’introspection, les Danois s’éloignent de l‘insoutenable désespoir des Quatuors Beethoven, Borodine et Prazak.  Moins endeuillée, leur lecture trouvé sa force dans l’interrrogation. La polyphonie, la variation et de fortes oppositions rythmiques dominent le parcours de l’ ‘Opus 127’ beethovénien. […] nos musiciens, par leur style châtié et très concentrè, font bien ressentir l’èvolution de l’harmonie. Leur acuité sonore, leur densité implacable et leur approfondissement rendent justice aussi bien aux speculations rythmiques du scherzo qu’à l’élan et á la parfait èconomie d’effets du finale.  
Patrick Szersnovicz, Diapason
 
Transcite par Mozart, la courte ‘Fugue BWV 867’ introduit ce programme avec une luminosité qui laisse vite place à la nuit du ‘Quatuor no. 15’ de Chostakovitch, sorte de journal intime èçrit par un homme confronté aux affres de la maladie et à l’imminence de la mort. Les Danois exaltent toute la profondeurt et la paralysie èmotionnelle de cette œuvre au moyen d’un jeu minimaliste, d’une tension contenue qui jamais ne retombe,avec des cordes au timbre plein mais pas rond, tantôt terreux tantôt transparent. Ce Chostakovitch glaçant, gris et désespéré, est soulagé par la promessed’une aurore dans le ‘Quatuor no. 12’ de Beethoven, très chambriste, organique, à la sonorité mate et aux longues phrases bien soutenues. […] la proposition reste superbe de bout en bout.
Fabienne Bouvet, Classica
“There is probably no string quartet that I would rather hear play Beethoven at the moment than this foursome of three young Danes and their Norwegian cellist, who demonstrate unrivalled intensity, freedom in their playing and remarkable feel for the composer.”
- David Allen, New York Times
 
For its third ECM release, the Danish String Quartet – hailed by the Washington Post as “one of the best quartets before the public today” and as simply “terrific” by The Guardian – inaugurates a series of albums with the overarching title of Prism, in which the group will present one of Beethoven’s late string quartets in the context of a related fugue by J.S. Bach as well as a linked masterwork from the quartet literature. With Prism 1, it is the first of Beethoven’s late quartets, his grand Op. 127 in E-flat Major, alongside Bach’s luminous fugue in the same key (arranged by Mozart) and Dmitri Shostakovich’s final string quartet, No. 15 in E-flat minor, a haunted and haunting sequence of six adagios.
 
For Prism 1, the DSQ convened at the Reitstadel in Neumarkt, Germany, the group applying its lyricism and spirit of ensemble to this interconnected sound world of Bach, Beethoven and Shostakovich. Bach’s fugue in E-flat Major, BWV 876, was one of five pieces that Mozart transcribed for string quartet from his predecessor’s epochal collection of preludes and fugues, The Well-Tempered Clavier. Like Mozart, Beethoven also revered Bach and studied The Well-Tempered Clavier closely, his playing of its pieces noted in press reports on the young performer. Beethoven’s five late string quartets were his ultimate statement in music; the first three of these late quartets were commissioned by a Russian prince, in 1822. Shostakovich’s 15 string quartets constitute the greatest cycle of such works after Beethoven; the rarified example of the German’s late quartets was surely on the Russian composer’s mind as he completed his final – and longest and most intimate – work in the genre, in 1974, the year before his death.
 
The spacious grandeur of Beethoven’s late quartets and, in particular, their epically hymnal slow movements – including that of the Op. 127, marked Adagio, mon non troppo e molto cantabile – were an obvious, powerful influence on the adagios of Shostakovich’s final quartet. Reflecting on the impact of Beethoven’s late string quartets, the DSQ note that “they changed the game. Every composer after Beethoven had to consider these five works and somehow figure out how to carry on the torch. Beethoven had taken a fundamentally linear development from Bach and exploded everything into myriad colors, directions and opportunities.”
 
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The Danish String Quartet is a group with an almost lifelong history of musical collaboration. Its three members born in Denmark – Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen, Frederik Øland and Asbjørn Nørgaard – first played chamber music together in a music summer camp before they were even teenagers, and then continued to do so throughout the school year, driven by their own enthusiasm. In 2001, Tim Frederiksen of the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen, who had been the leader of Den Danske Strygekvartet, became the quartet’s mentor and main teacher. In 2006, the group made its first recordings – of Carl Nielsen’s quartets – as the Young Danish String Quartet, attracting the attention of publications from Gramophone to The New York Times. In 2008, Norwegian cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin joined the quartet, and the group has since gone from strength to strength.
In 2009, the DSQ not only took First Prize in the Eleventh London International String Quartet Competition; it was also awarded four additional prizes: the 20th Century Prize, the Beethoven Prize, the Sidney Griller Award and the Menton Festival Prize. The DSQ also received the Carl Nielsen Prize, Denmark’s most important cultural award, in 2011. The group’s 2017 ECM album, Last Leaf, saw it explore the texturally rich, emotionally resonant world of Nordic folk music, from ages-old Christmas tunes to timeless funeral hymns, from medieval ballads and boat songs to such dances as minuet, waltz, reel and polska. The Danish quartet played its custom arrangements of this material with the lush tone and virtuoso focus that had earned the quartet such plaudits as “spellbinding” from Strings magazine for its ECM New Series debut of 20th-century compositions by Per Nørgård, Hans Abrahamsen and Thomas Adès, released in 2016. Both albums were singled out as among the best albums of the year by The New York Times.