Bartók: Divertimento - Brahms: String Quintet in G

Album review

These two musical giants, Brahms and Bartok, are among my personal favourites, bound bytheir love of folk music, from which they both drew creative inspiration. For this CD recordingwe have once again coupled together a string orchestral work and an arrangement of achamber music piece, similar to the concept used for our Brahms – Schoenberg, Mahler –Beethoven CDs.
Bartok’s Divertimento for string orchestra is an exceptionally original work and it has been onour ‘bucket list’ to record for quite a long time, but choosing the moment when somethingis ‘in one’s blood’, so to speak, is not an easy decision because every ti me we have rehearsedand performed it we have discovered new things – it is such a mellifluously rich work! Withpieces like this it is never the same journey twice. I am extremely happy we have finally put itonto a CD.
Brahms’s opus 111 is a string quintet hugely loved by us all. It is not often performed by a fullstring orchestra and is already overpowering in its original quintet form. I fell in love with thismusic many years ago and spent two weeks deciphering every corner of it in a masterclasswith Isaac Stern. It is a very ambitious piece to record with a large group of string players – allthe intricacies of the solo voices have to be found and polished, but in my view it lends itself tobecoming – dare I say it – a ‘symphony for strings’ when one approaches it with so many moreplayers. Some of the textures seem even more glorious. However, I leave it to you ‘the listener’to decide for yourself!
- Candida Thompson