The Kreutzer Quartet's approach to Anton Reicha's (a Czech émigré composer) music emphasizes individual energy and shaping, with each player insisting on their own primacy, like a 'quodlibet'.
Compositional Technique
Anton Reicha (a Czech émigré composer) delighted in creating thematic puzzles and expanded on Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's work by using sudden, unprepared modulations into remote key-areas.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Anton Reicha (a Czech émigré composer) had a great penchant for doing the unusual in composition, feeling his creative faculties were keener when writing in an original vein.
Composition History
The string quartets by Anton Reicha (a Czech émigré composer) on this album are world premieres, filling a major gap in the history of the quartet form.
Instruments
The first violinist, Peter Sheppard Skærved, plays an Antonio Stradivari violin from 1698, known as the 'Joachim', from the Royal Academy of Music collection.
Composer Biography
Anton Reicha (a Czech émigré composer) and Ludwig van Beethoven (a German composer) were inseparable companions in Bonn, where they played in the same orchestra and studied together.
Album & Artwork
This is the second of four CDs dedicated to the eight string quartets Anton Reicha (a Czech émigré composer) composed in Vienna, part of a larger project to record all his surviving string quartets.
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