PRISM III (Danish String Quartet) (CD)

The third volume of the Danish String Quartet’s ongoing Prism series, which shows how the radiance of Bach’s fugues is refracted through Beethoven’s quartets to illuminate the work of later composers. “Beethoven had taken a fundamentally linear development from Bach,” the Danes note, “and exploded everything into myriads of different colours, directions and opportunities – much in the same way as a prism splits a beam of light.” Here the quartet follow the beam from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Fugue in c-sharp minor through Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet no.14 to Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No.1.

TRACKLIST:

Ludwig van Beethoven - String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, op. 131
1 Adagio ma non troppo e molto 08:08
2 Allegro molto vivace 03:00
3 Allegro moderato - Adagio 00:50
4 Andante ma non troppo e molto 14:47
5 Presto 05:15
6 Adagio quasi un poco andante 02:28
7 Allegro 06:47

Béla Bartók - String Quartet No. 1, op. 7 Sz. 40
8 Lento 10:23
9 Allegretto 08:37
10 Introduzione. Allegro 01:42
11 Allegro vivace 10:26

Johann Sebastian Bach, arr. Emanuel Aloys Förster - The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
12 Fugue C-sharp minor, BWV 849 04:24