Richter Ensemble - Webern, Schoenberg & Berg: String Quartets (2020) [Hi-Res]

The Richter Ensemble performs music from the 17th to the 20th century exclusively on gut strings and uses its experience with historical performance practice to heighten the sense for the development of musical language over the centuries. The ensemble is passionately dedicated to the music of the Second Viennese School and, based on its research, has decided that the time is ripe to steer the perception of this music in a new direction, on the path of rediscovering and recapturing not only its modernity but also its connections with the past. Hence the musicians have initiated a project to record the entire string quartet works of the Second Viennese School, to place them in a historical context and to combine them with unusual works by other composers.

Their first production is called Vienna 1905-1910, with music by Webern, Schönberg and Berg: Webern’s Langsamer Satz, Schönberg’s String Quartet No. 2 with mezzo-soprano (as originally intended!) and Berg’s Opus 3. This approach captures a completely different palette of sounds and unveils a romantic language and nuances that are often neglected by the sometimes severely modern string quartets with their metal strings. As a result, the listener’s access to these works is less of a challenge.