Named one of the greatest string quartets of the last 100 years by BBC Music Magazine, the Grammy-nominated Dover Quartet’s critically acclaimed traversal of Beethoven’s Complete String Quartets is now available as a specially priced 8-disc boxed set (price of 3 CDs), releasing December 8.

“It’s hard to imagine a group better suited to recording these works than the Dover Quartet,” wrote New York’s WQXR of the Vol. 1 Op. 18 quartets, often cited as the epitome of the classical string quartet as developed by Haydn and Mozart, while foreshadowing Beethoven’s future innovation. “Beethoven would find it hard to believe that his quartets could be played with such perfection of execution, such beauty of tone, such nuance of expression, and such keen understanding of his music’s meaning and intent” (Fanfare).

Vol. 2, the Dover Quartet delivered “the most profoundly penetrating performances of Beethoven’s middle string quartets” (Fanfare), including the three Op. 59 “Razumovsky” Quartets, infused with Russian folk tunes; the graceful “Harp,” Op. 74, named for its plucked string figures; and the intense Op. 95 “Serioso,” a forward-looking experiment that Beethoven originally intended “for a small circle of connoisseurs.” Only Strings said, “The Dover performances sparkle and thrill. Their virtuosity is immediately apparent.”

Comprising Beethoven’s very last compositions — the five monumental, revolutionary Late Quartets and imposing Grosse Fuge — Vol. 3 “culminates their excellent recordings of all of Beethoven’s string quartets” (Third Coast Review). Remarkable and often daunting works that upended the concept of the string quartet, they are often considered the ultimate expression of Beethoven’s artistry. “This is a monumental achievement by one of the best string quartets playing today” (Classical CD Reviews).

The Dover Quartet has followed a “practically meteoric” (Strings) trajectory to become one of the most in-demand chamber ensembles in the world since sweeping all prizes at the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition. In addition to serving as the Penelope P. Watkins Ensemble in Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Dover Quartet holds residencies with the Kennedy Center, Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University (it’s longest residency, dating back to 2015), Artosphere, and Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival.

Long available only in a larger box, the only available digital-era set of Martinu’s string quartets, recorded in 1990 by a native Czech ensemble.

Martinu composed seven quartets over the course of his career, from the First in 1918 to the Seventh in 1947. This chronological range therefore mirrors the development of his music, from Debussy and Franck-accented Bohemianism in the First to a more up-to-date French influence on the Second from 1925, which arrives in the finale at the kind of chugging accumulations of motoric energy that became his trademark.

The direct emotional appeal of all seven quartets is vividly brought to life by the Stamitz Quartet in a recording first issued in 1990, and which still has very few rivals on disc. Established in 1985, the Stamitz Quartet quickly became known as leading interpreters of Czech repertory. ‘I can heartily recommend this comprehensive traversal of the unpredictable, occasionally highly impressive works that make up the corpus of Martinu’s Quartets.’ (MusicWeb International)

Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1420-1497) was one of the most celebrated musicians of the fifteenth century and one of the greatest composers of all time. He was every bit the equal of J.S. Bach in contrapuntal technique and profound expressivity, and like Bach able to combine the most rigorous intellectual structure with a beguiling sensuality. His two dozen songs set French lyric poetry in the courtly forms of his era—rondeau, virelai, and ballade—to exquisitely crafted polyphony in which all voices are granted equally beautiful and compelling melodies.

This CD is the companion to Blue Heron’s 2019 release, Johannes Ockeghem: Complete Songs, Volume 1, which was named to the Bestenliste of the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik and acclaimed in Gramophone as “performances of absolute clarity, beautifully in tune, beautifully balanced and beautifully recorded”; Early Music enthused that “the Boston-based ensemble is at its finest—a summit quite sublime.… The group’s extraordinary rapport with the music is evident everywhere in the recording; each melodic line is not only clear and precise but also imbued with obvious affection.”

Besides twelve of Ockeghem’s songs, the disc includes two related works (Gilles Binchois’s Pour prison, quoted by Ockeghem in his song La despourveue, and Johannes Cornago’s Qu’es mi vida, arranged by Ockeghem) and an anonymous instrumental arrangement of Ockeghem’s Je n’ay dueil. The CD booklet contains complete texts and translations, and notes by music historian Sean Gallagher and Blue Heron’s artistic director, Scott Metcalfe.

The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs awarded a rosette to Stephen Hough’s earlier Gramophone Award-winning Hyperion recording of Mompou, and this successor is equally fine. Música callada comprises twenty-eight exquisite miniatures, brief in duration yet rich in allusion: music which makes its mark with subtlety, understatement and a unique economy of means.

REVIEW:

Hough is the ideal guide to the music of Mompou. He wholly inhabits the music’s mystical atmosphere, its holy simplicity. Exquisite sensitivity is matched by a steely strength. Sounds coalesce and insist on their presence, before disappearing into the ether. Austerity blends with warmth.

— BBC Music Magazine