Alexander String Quartet, Paul Yarbrough – Mozart: The String Quintets (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Alexander String Quartet, Paul Yarbrough – Mozart: The String Quintets (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:52:21 minutes | 3,55 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Foghorn Classics

Mozart’s string quintets represent “some of his most sophisticated musical thinking … wonderful music, exhilarating to hear” (from the liner notes by Eric Bromberger). With this three album set, the Alexander String Quartet and Paul Yarbrough complete their Mozart compendium.

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William Kanengiser & Alexander String Quartet – British Invasion (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

William Kanengiser & Alexander String Quartet – British Invasion (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:10 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Foghorn Classics

The Alexander String Quartet and guitarist William Kanengiser form a dynamic collaboration that explores the music of Sting, Led Zeppelin, John Dowland and The Beatles by way of contemporary composers Ian Krouse, Dušan Bogdanović and Leo Brouwer.

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Joyce Yang, Alexander String Quartet – Mozart: The Piano Quartets (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Joyce Yang, Alexander String Quartet - Mozart: The Piano Quartets (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Joyce Yang, Alexander String Quartet – Mozart: The Piano Quartets (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:12 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Foghorn Classics

Maintaining focus on Mozart’s last years, members of the Alexander String Quartet join with electrifying and much-lauded pianist Joyce Yang on this recording of the two piano quartets. This is the second of a three-volume set which will include many of Mozart’s great chamber works from that period. Eric Bromberger’s liner notes contextualize these works within the canon: “Some have claimed that Mozart invented the piano quartet, but he did not. Other composers- including the fourteen year old Beethoven- had written quartets for piano and strings earlier, but Mozart was the first to face squarely the challenges of this difficult form, and he wrote the first two great piano quartets.” Now in its 37th season, the Alexander String Quartet’s discography includes major cycles by Bartok, Kodaly, Mozart, Shostakovich, and Beethoven. ASQ is also an important advocate of new music, with over 35 commissions and premieres. In addition to extensive concertizing on five continents, the quartet is on the faculty of San Francisco State University where they direct the Instructional Program of the Morrison Chamber Music Center. They have been feted as Ensemble in Residence with San Francisco Performances for more than a quartet century and at the Mondavi Center at UC Davis for 15 years.
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Alexander String Quartet, Eli Eban – Brahms & Mozart: Clarinet Quintets (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Alexander String Quartet, Eli Eban - Brahms & Mozart: Clarinet Quintets (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Alexander String Quartet, Eli Eban – Brahms & Mozart: Clarinet Quintets (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:24 minutes | 1,35 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Foghorn Classics

Electrifying clarinetist Eli Eban and the Alexander String Quartet celebrate the two masterpieces widely considered the preeminent works in their form: the clarinet quintets by Mozart and Brahms. Eric Bromberger writes: Composers have been drawn to the combination of clarinet and string quartet ever since the clarinet began to take shape in the eighteenth century. The mellow sound and agility of the clarinet make it an ideal complement to the resonant warmth and harmonic richness of the string quartet, and the range of composers who have written for this pairing is extraordinarily diverse, including Weber, Meyerbeer, Reger, Busoni, Hindemith, and more recently Carter and Widmann. Yet all these compositions, varied as they are, exist within the shadow of the two towering masterpieces composed for clarinet and string quartet, the quintets of Mozart and Brahms. Those two quintets are invariably paired in recordings, as they are on this album. And it is quite right that they should be. They are two of the finest chamber works by two of the greatest composers, and there are many parallels between them: both were written late in their creators lives, both were inspired by contact with a particular clarinetist, and both beautifully integrate the quite different sonorities of clarinet and string quartet. Neither work is in any way valedictory, yet coming near the end of each composers life they represent some of the most refined and expressive music of Mozart and Brahms.
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Alexander String Quartet – Brahms: String Quartets Nos. 1-3 (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Alexander String Quartet - Brahms: String Quartets Nos. 1-3 (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Alexander String Quartet – Brahms: String Quartets Nos. 1-3 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:48:04 minutes | 2,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Foghorn Classics

The Alexander String Quartet launches its 40th season with this recording of Brahms String Quartets — plus Brahms’ Intermezzo (transcribed for string quartet by Zakarias Grafilo). With these complete Brahms Quartets, the ASQ has compiled a veritable Brahms compendium, including Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet (FCL 2021, with Eli Eban) and Piano Quintets (FCL 2014, with Joyce Yang), both named “MusicWeb International Recordings of the Year”, as well as his String Quintets and Sextets (FCL 2012), which were hailed as a “life-enhancing set” by The Arts Desk.
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