The Dane Hans Abrahamsen represents the rare example of a composer who has pursued a steady simplification of his style apart from the main streams of American and Baltic minimalism. Many of his works take their own shapes, but his four string quartets, covering a period from 1973 to 2012 (including a ten-year period when he wrote nothing at all), refer, except for the first, to the classical, four-movement form. The development of his style is of considerable interest. Abrahamsen does not use extended technique per se, but ...
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The Dane Hans Abrahamsen represents the rare example of a composer who has pursued a steady simplification of his style apart from the main streams of American and Baltic minimalism. Many of his works take their own shapes, but his four string quartets, covering a period from 1973 to 2012 (including a ten-year period when he wrote nothing at all), refer, except for the first, to the classical, four-movement form. The development of his style is of considerable interest. Abrahamsen does not use extended technique per se, but the range of gliassandos, pizzicatos, and other unorthodox attacks, plus a good deal of music on the edge of silence, are enough to stretch the chops of top-flight string quartets. Fortunately, the Arditti String Quartet is up to the challenges, and the sound from a WDR radio studio in Cologne, is conducive to high levels of focus. The quartets are, unusually, presented in reverse chronological order, but this works wonderfully: the String Quartet No. 4 is the easiest one to follow,...
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