Add the Escher String Quartet to that list. On the BIS label, they are evidently working towards a cycle of their own, which would be the first on Super Audio CDs. Charles Downey, writing in the ...

The Paris-based Quatuor Diotima mark their 20th anniversary with a clutch of new recordings. The centrepiece is this very fine set devoted to the Second Viennese School, which is perhaps the best ...

The Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe, who died in August at 85, wrote music of such rich beauty and such achingly transparent emotionalism that the results can be almost difficult to listen to.

Hans Abrahamsen’s string quartets span almost 40 years, virtually the whole of his career as a composer. The first, a set of 10 preludes, dates from 1973, and the second, cast, like those that ...

Steve Reich’s Different Trains remains an exemplary example of how to integrate live musicians with pre-recorded sound, the string quartet echoing precisely a series of speech samples and train noises ...

When I first heard the Verus String Quartet, it was at the ARD International Music Competition in 2008, where the then-two year old ensemble had impressed me throughout – especially with their ...

The snatch of ambient noise before this set’s first item, coupled with the Gabrieli Players’ performance, could convince the unwary that this is a handsomely scrubbed up historical recording. Elgar’s ...

The Doric gives outstanding, virtuoso performances of William Walton’s two string quartets. The first of them, formidable in its technical demands and harmonic language, is virtually unrecognisable ...

Almost any day of the week, you can catch a string quartet performing in New York. In a three-day stretch in mid-January, I saw five concerts by four groups—the JACK Quartet, the Momenta Quartet, the ...

While he is more familiar for his vocal music and as a conductor, Ronald Corp’s two string quartets, together with his entertaining Country Matters for tenor and string trio, make for a varied ...

In a move that stunned local arts patrons, the Los Angeles-based Angeles String Quartet has announced it is disbanding after more than 13 years. The decision was all the more surprising because the ...