Statements

Positive feedback Jan 2023

Spanning over 200 years, Cuarteto Quiroga explores what it means to write for a string quartet. In each case, the composer is making a statement about the music and where they wish to take it. Cuarteto Quiroga begins with the second of Haydn’s Opus 20 string quartets: Divertimento a quattro Op. 20, No. 2 (1772). It is a work redolent in humor, drama, craftmanship, irony, lyricism, simplicity and boldness. Whew, what a list! Let’s say it is Haydn laying down his expectations for where music needs to be moving. It is the beginning of his Sturm und Drang period of compositions that become more and more fully explored as he proceeds through the remaining quartets in his Opus 20 series of six quartets. He is exploring new harmonic territory in which the qualities of each individual instrument are emphasized.

Anton Webern (1883-1945), more than one hundred years later, faces the exhaustion of the Romantic idiom. His choice is to challenge himself and others to a new direction with the composition of his Langsamer Satz (Slow Movement) in 1905. This is a single movement from what was to be a longer quartet but which Webern never finished. It is a highly charged work, clearly rooted in post-Brahmsian romanticism and tonality, and expressing a plethora of emotions. From this beautifully tonal masterpiece, the Cuarteto Quiroga then move to Webern’s Five Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5 (1910). a startling brief composition at a bit over 12 minutes. It is completely atonal and bristling with strange sounds from extended playing techniques, and arguably even more radical  than Schoenberg’s infamous second string quartet of 1908.

The album concludes with a first recording of a work written in 2008, Sonnets et Rondeaux, by Giovanni Sollima (b. 1962). Sollima is a composer of a newer generation which cannot escape the omnipresent influence of popular music and which flirts in a brilliant, instinctive and irreverent eclecticism with different traditions: from various folkish patterns of European cultures to minimalism and cinema. 

This is excellent programming! An educational journey combined with outstanding music. And beautifully performed by Cuarteto Quiroga who fill the album with stylish energy. 

Rushton Paul - Source

Expansión

Welcome to the trenches: the splendid Cuarteto Quiroga shows off his versatility and sonic richness. Magnificent and exiting the consecutive listening of Haydn and Webern. A debut CD to be praised and saluted in the battlefield of discography.

El Cultural (El Mundo)

A record adventure to be acclaimed. A truly agile, refreshing and transparent interpretation: just as it should be.

Klassieke Zaken

It is virtually unimaginable how easily the tones flow from the hands of the Cuarteto Quiroga (…) we just hear a string quartet playing of a rarley heard beauty.

De Volkskrant

Few string quartets manage to achieve such a sophisticated, meticulous sound as the Cuarteto Quiroga on their debut CD (…) which can be listened to as an aesthetic manifesto. (…) One could not wish anything more in terms of unity and insight into performance.

Ritmo (Spain)

The Cuarteto Quiroga has just recorded a beautiful and exellent CD. A truly successful combination of elegance and good taste.

Babelia (El País)

“Here you have performances of the highest possible level.”

Klassik.com 6.25 out of 5

“The small selection of outstanding, under the slogan, Statements’ subsumed quartets not only their respective point values ??are discussed in the well over 250 years constantly evolving discipline, but also made immense demands on the interpretive skills.
Maximum range of expression, balance of individual voices, articulatory precision and uncommon transparency prove time outlasting paradigms that brought the genre already 1810, purest, most perfect presentation ‘(AmZ).”
“Thus, it is only logical to juxtapose different stations of a class story that can be tied together in their advanced aspirations. And the Cuarteto Quiroga can prove how confident it is understood to move between musical styles.”

Jasemin Khaleli - Source