(...) The Auryn Quartet members find gracious complements - especially in the soaring duets between first violin and first cello--in the talents of Christian Altenburger and Patrick Demenga. The interior movements - a swaggering Dumka in 5/4 that broadens to a sweet lullaby in the middle section, and a virile Furiant - have been characterized as "a picture-postcard for Czechoslovakia." Razor-sharp intonation and blistering attacks make the Furiant a keeper. The lovely finale takes a theme introduced by Viola I and develops five inventive variations, several pointing to the Symphonic Variations, Op. 78. In the fourth variation we hear echoes from the nocturne section of Smetana’s The Moldau. The culminating stretta and whirlwind coda achieve the symphonic dimension the sextet medium promises in the hands of Romantic masters.
Recorded in Honrath in November 2010, the engineering by Andreas Spreer is top-flight.
Gary Lemco

<< back