“…Emotional and committed retrospective of 20^th-century composer’s string quartets… With vivid, forward recordings in the best Chandos style, this is a worthy successor to the Silesian Quartet’s revelatory Bacewicz recordings on the same label.”

Recommended

“…These are extraordinary works, and, like all great music, are open to a variety of legitimate interpretations, giving new and rewarding insights… the Silesian Quartet rightly present the quartets in order of composition. Penderecki’s style continually developed, from the sometimes aggressive modernism of the early works, to the more evident lyricism of the later… there is great warmth to the sound picture, with immaculate phrasing and detail …”

“… A hard act to beat.”

Performance *****      Recording *****

“… The works on this superlative new recording of the Complete Quartets date from 1960 to 2016, and some of his finest music is here. As the Silesian Quartet shows in their chronologically presented survey, the earliest music holds up well…”

“…It’s hugely to the credit of the Silesians that they seem just as assured in negotiating the clusters and glissandos of the early quartets as they are in refining the traditional textures and lyrical phrases of the later ones….” *****