27 and 28 April 2014 (Epitaphs, Eclipse) & 12 and 13 December 2014 (String Quartet No. 2)
Notes
Australian composer and violist Brett Dean has won many prizes for his orchestral and chamber compositions, including the most renowned of them in 2009, the Grawemeyer Award. Today his works are performed all over the world and highly praised for their aplomb and power of expression as well as their ready accessibility to listeners.
The three works featured here were composed between 2003 and 2013 and are all Premiere Recordings. They highlight the empathetic side of Dean: if Eclipse is an evocation of the refugees saved during the ‘Tampa Crisis’, the five movements of Epitaphs are individual obituaries for lost friends of Dean’s. A viola player with the Berlin Philharmonic for fourteen years, Dean joins the Doric String Quartet in the latter, a string quintet with two violas.
In the Second String Quartet, Dean presents Shakespeare’s Ophelia not as a passively suffering victim but as a ‘feistier personality’, full of passion and agility. This is echoed by the great variety of vocal facets required of the soprano here. Young yet already internationally famous and much awarded, Allison Bell will perform next year at Shakespeare’s 400th Anniversary Gala, directed by Simon Callow at the Royal Festival Hall in London.
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Reviews
“... I cannot recommend this release highly enough.”
Ronald E Grames Fanfare March/April 2016
“... The assured playing of the Doric String Quartet secures admirable results, and they have been recorded in superb sound. Potton Hall confers warmth and intimacy on the performances and Kerstin Schüssler-Bach’s outstanding annotations are an added bonus This appealing release has certainly prompted me to explore Dean’s music further.”
Stephen Greenbank – MusicWeb-International.com – September 2015
Performance **** Recording ****
Misha Donat – BBC Music magazine – November 2015
“ ... All three works get powerfully immediate readings from the Doric Quartet Excellent sound, decent annotations and a valuable addition to the Dean discography.”
Richard Whitehouse – Gramophone magazine – October 2015
“...Powerful, original music.”
Stephen Pettitt – The Sunday Times (Culture magazine) – 13 September 2015
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