The Signum Quartett continues their Schubert journey for PENTATONE with Ins stille Land, a recording that explores the fascinating connections between his string quartets and songs, the latter arranged for string quartet by Xandi van Dijk, the ensemble’s violist. The concept for this recording project grew out of the salon gatherings called Schubertiaden, where chamber music and vocal works would be heard side by side in an intimate setting. The songs and quartets featured on Ins stille Land share a fascination for alienation and death, characteristic of Schubert’s troubled existence, with his world famous “Death and the Maiden” quartet as the album’s centrepiece.

The Signum Quartett is frequently hailed as one of the most adventurous and outstanding ensembles of today.

REVIEW:

This disc's program is centered on the 'Death and the Maiden' Quartet – a work that tends to overpower everything in its immediate vicinity. That it doesn’t is due in part to the Signum’s ensemble sound: passionate, often brilliant, but also clear and lean, with vibrato thoughtfully used. But it’s also down to the selection of songs (superbly transcribed, once again, by the group’s viola player Xandi van Dijk). How many ensembles would have pre-empted the D minor Quartet with the whole of ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’? The Signum Quartet give us a single brief extract as a sort of recitative introducing a reflective sequence of transcriptions. Following the opening pair of songs, the early D major Quartet, D74, emerges from silence as if already under way; and after a D810 finale so swift that it feels genuinely dangerous, the closing ‘Schwanengesang’ seems more like a question mark than a peaceful resolution. Anyway, hear for yourself. Enjoyable purely as a recital on its own terms, it’s an album that repays careful and repeated listening.

-- Gramophone