Also the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" writes about our CD on November 13th, 2009:
«The Passion of a Quartet»
«The Merel Quartet, together now for seven years, has secured a position as one of the most
interesting young chamber music ensembles. Their first CD may well be understood as an avowal:
not only in terms of the immediacy of the interpretation, but also with regard to repertoire.
The centerpiece of the release is the three-movement first string quartet "Ph(r)ases" by the 34-year-old Swiss composer
David Philip Hefti: expressive music, which, with its richly woven textures, expanded vocabulary of sounds and
declamatory gestures, lays a path to the other two works on the CD by referring to the love affairs of Clara and Robert Schumann as well as
Kamila Stösslová and Léos Janácek. The Merel Quartet plays this romanticizing, subjective novelty, whose volatility and
almost manic motivic repetitions do indeed remind one of Janácek, with the same enthusiasm as the older works. Schumann's a minor quartet
Op. 41 nr.1 is presented with transparency and clarity, with healthy yet elegant tone and deep reflection, as rich in tonal variety as
Janácek's second string quartet "Intimate Letters". The fluctuations between despair and bliss are seldom achieved so unobtrusively
yet at the same time with such depth of feeling.»
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