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Orchestra of St. Paul's & Ben Palmer - Elgar: String Quartet - Arnold: Sonata for Strings - Simpson: Allegro deciso (2016) [Hi-Res]

Orchestra of St. Paul's & Ben Palmer - Elgar: String Quartet - Arnold: Sonata for Strings - Simpson: Allegro deciso (2016) [Hi-Res]
  • Title: Elgar: String Quartet - Arnold: Sonata for Strings - Simpson: Allegro deciso
  • Year Of Release: 2016
  • Label: SOMM Recordings
  • Genre: Classical
  • Quality: flac lossless / flac 24bits - 96.0kHz +Booklet
  • Total Time: 01:06:12
  • Total Size: 296 mb / 1.03 gb
  • WebSite:
Tracklist

01. String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 83: I. Allegro moderato
02. String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 83: II. Piacevole: poco Andante
03. String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 83: III. Finale: Allegro molto
04. Sonata for Strings: I. Allegro
05. Sonata for Strings: II. Maestoso con molto rubato – Allegro vivace
06. Sonata for Strings: III. Andante
07. Sonata for Strings: IV. Allegretto
08. String Quartet No. 3 in E Major: Allegro Decis

Orchestra of St. Paul's & Ben Palmer - Elgar: String Quartet - Arnold: Sonata for Strings - Simpson: Allegro deciso (2016) [Hi-Res]


This release from SOMM recorded last March with the Orchestra of St Paul's under its Artistic Director, Ben Palmer, brings together the première recordings of three works for string quartet in magnificent versions for string orchestra. Elgar's glorious String Quartet and Malcolm Arnold's String Quartet No. 2 (here recast as Sonata for Strings) performed here in transcriptions by renowned composer David Matthews. Robert Simpson's thrilling Allegro deciso, the finale of his String Quartet No. 3, is heard in the composer's own arrangement for strings.

Elgar's only String Quartet was begun in London in March 1918 and finished at his Sussex cottage by Christmas. He began writing the delicate central Piacevole movement on his wife Alice's birthday, 9th October. She described it as 'like captured sunshine' and asked to have it played at her funeral.

Malcolm Arnold's String Quartet No.2, his final work in the genre, was completed in Dublin in 1975 and premiered the following year in Dublin by the Allegri Quartet. Its dedicatee was Hugh Maguire, the quartet's first violin, himself an Irishman, and after a short violin cadenza the quartet's second movement takes the form of an Irish Reel (incl. in audio sample here). A deeply personal work and thrillingly intense, it revels in uncompromising juxtapositions between bleak despair and the most heart-melting beautiful melodies imaginable. Robert Simpson's orchestration of the finale to his own String Quartet No.3 was made in 1953/54 at the suggestion of the composer and conductor Walter Goehr. The quartet is unusual in being cast in just two movements, a lamenting Adagio in C major and the pulsating energy of the E minor Allegro deciso made even more powerful by the weight of a full string section.

“The middle movement [of the Elgar String Quartet] is the revelation, shimmering with a new hushed beauty - equally a testament to the lustre frequently achieved by the 16 musicians in Ben Palmer's Orchestra of St. Pauls.” (BBC Music Magazine)

“Ben Palmer elicits an agreeably spruce and consistently alert response from the 16 string players of the Orchestra of St Paul's, while Ben Connellan's sound is pleasingly transparent and airy to match. All told, a stimulating and laudable release.” (Gramophone Magazine)


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