ECM New Series: Keller Quartett — Cantante e tranquillo Audio CD

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Product Details:

• Product Type: Audio CD
• Brand / Label: ECM New Series
• Ensemble: Keller Quartett
• Composers: Ludwig van Beethoven, György Ligeti, Johann Sebastian Bach, György Kurtág, Alfred Schnittke, Alexander Knaifel
• Producer: Manfred Eicher
• Release Year: 2015
• Genre: Classical / Contemporary
• Style: String Quartet, Chamber Music
• Catalog Number: ECM 2324 / 4811052
• UPC: 028948110520
• Condition: Factory Sealed

Product Features

• Format: CD
• Discs: 1
• Packaging: Digipak (cardboard sleeve), factory shrink-wrapped
• Printed in Germany (LC 02516)

Performers

Line-up 1: András Keller (violin), János Pilz (violin), Zoltán Gál (viola), Ottó Kertész (violoncello)

Line-up 2: András Keller (violin), Zsófia Környei (violin), Zoltán Gál (viola), Judit Szabó (violoncello)

Overview

Cantante e tranquillo is the title the Keller Quartett chose for this 2015 ECM New Series album — and the phrase, a Beethoven performance direction meaning "singing and tranquil," signals exactly what the disc is about. It's a programme built around the quality of sustained, inward listening: Beethoven alongside Ligeti, Bach transcriptions alongside miniatures by Kurtág, and works by Schnittke and Alexander Knaifel that occupy similar emotional territory.

The Keller Quartett is a Hungarian string quartet founded by András Keller in 1987, and one of the most consistently distinguished chamber ensembles of its generation. Their ECM association has produced a series of recordings that reward careful attention, and this one is among the most personal: the repertoire spans four centuries and several aesthetic traditions, but the playing keeps everything in the same register — quiet, concentrated, and singing.

Two different line-ups appear on the disc, noting the quartet's evolution between recordings; both share Keller and Gál at their core. Manfred Eicher's production, as always in ECM's New Series catalogue, gives the strings a natural warmth without artificial enhancement. For collectors of serious chamber music and ECM recordings, this is an important and deeply considered disc.

Interesting Facts

• The Keller Quartett was founded in Budapest in 1987 by András Keller, who also leads the chamber orchestra Concerto Budapest; the quartet has won multiple international prizes and recorded extensively for ECM since the early 2000s.
• György Kurtág (born 1926, Romania) is one of the most revered living composers; his miniature string quartet pieces, characterised by extreme compression and emotional intensity, have become central to the contemporary quartet repertoire.
• Alexander Knaifel (born 1943, Tashkent) is a Russian composer associated with spiritual minimalism and extreme quietude; his music is rarely recorded and his presence on this disc reflects ECM's consistent interest in composers outside the mainstream canon.
• Alfred Schnittke (1934–1998) was one of the major Soviet and post-Soviet composers, known for his "polystylism" — the deliberate mixing of musical styles from different eras; his string quartets are among his most performed chamber works.
• György Ligeti (1923–2006) is represented here alongside Beethoven, a pairing that reflects the Keller Quartett's characteristically broad aesthetic view: both composers pushed the string quartet to its expressive limits, though three centuries apart.
• The title Cantante e tranquillo is drawn from a performance marking in Beethoven's late string quartet writing — a direction that captures the meditative, lyrical character that runs through the entire programme.

Publishers

℗ & © 2015 ECM Records GmbH, München. Produced by Manfred Eicher. Printed in Germany. LC 02516.

A disc for patient listeners — heard it? A short note helps other chamber music collectors find it.