Molinari Quartet - Schnittke: Piano Quartet & Quintet, String Trio (2013) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Alfred Schnittke’s chamber music comprises a dozen works which include four string quartets (released in 2011 by ATMA with Molinari Quartet, Chamber Music vol. 1 ACD2 2634), as well as the three works featured on this volume 2.

Schnittke was a great admirer of Mahler. In 1988, he based his own Piano Quartet on Mahler’s chamber music sketches. Schnittke dedicated the Quartet to the Ukrainian violinist Oleh (Oleg) Krysa, one of the musicians who had premiered his Trio. Schnittke’s String Trio was commissioned by the Alban Berg Society of Vienna to commemorate the centenary of the Austrian composer’s birth in 1985. His quintet can be thought of as a kind of heir to the one Shostakovich had composed in 1940. Its five movements create a sort of instrumental Requiem dominated by a cyclical theme of five notes and by the imitation of Russian church bells.

Internationally acclaimed by the public and the critics since its foundation in 1997, the Molinari Quartet has established a mandate to perform works from the 20th and 21st centuries, repertoire for string quartet, and to commission new works. Recipients of 14 Opus Prizes awarded by the Quebec Music Council, the Molinari Quartet is described by the critics as 'Canada's answer to the Kronos or Arditti Quartet.'

TRACKLIST

Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)

Piano Quartet (1988)
1 Piano Quartet 07:24

String Trio (1985)
2 I. Moderato 13:01
3 II. Adagio 11:04

Piano Quintet (1972-76)
4 I. Moderato 06:57
5 II. In Tempo di Valse 05:49
6 III. Andante 06:34
7 IV. Lento 04:44
8 V. Moderato pastorale 03:56

PERSONNEL
Quatuor Molinari:
Louise Bessette, piano
Olga Ranzenhofer, violin
Frédéric Bednarz, violin
Frédéric Lambert, viola
Pierre-Alain Bouvrette, cello