Nielsen, Carl - String Quartets, Vol. 1 - Young Danish String Quartet, The

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GRAMOPHONE EDITOR’S CHOICE

HÖGSTA BETYG I DAGENS NYHETER

HÖGSTA BETYG I P2:s CD-REVYN

'What will the Young Danish Quartet change their name to when it no longer suits their ages? If they continue to play with such levels of vigour and originality, with a sense that the music is new and exciting to them, a name-change may not be considered necessary at all. There is wisdom and subtlety here aplenty but the over-riding impression is of a quartet young and stylistically free.'
(Gramophone)

"...hur bra som helst"
(Vi)

• Carl Nielsen thrust Danish music into the 20th century, and his chamber music has a prominent position in the international repertoire. In spite of this Carl Nielsen only composed a limited number of chamber works for strings. His official oeuvre includes four string quartets with an opus number; however three of them were already composed before 1900.

• While today it is hard to draw any great distinctions among these four Nielsen quartets in terms of popularity, it was a different matter in his own time, when the earliest, the G minor quartet, was by far the least frequently performed, while the next one, in F minor, and the last, in F major, vied for a definitive first place, probably because they both belonged to the regular repertoire of well established ensembles

• This recording features two of his string quartets (in G minor and F major) and the only string quintet (in G major) he ever composed. All three works played a central role in Carl Nielsen's musical career, since they were major successes for the debuting composer and contributed to his initial breakthrough.


Tim Frederiksen, viola
The Young Danish String Quartet