Manuel Quartett - String Quartet No. 1 (2021) Hi-Res

For more than thirty years, Fritz Brun (1878-1959) was chief conductor of the city orchestra in Bern, Switzerland. He was strongly influenced by Johannes Brahms and extremely respected as a composer in his time. He is often referred to as the last symphonist of the Romantic style. His rich symphonic output is currently experiencing a remarkable renaissance. Now, chamber music is also moving into the limelight. While the wonderful 1st String Quartet from his student days in Cologne was not performed for decades and has now received its premiere recording by the Swiss Manuel Quartet, the passionate 1st Violin Sonata presented on the same album is considered Brun's most frequently performed work ever.

In autumn 2021, two early chamber music works by the Swiss composer Fritz Brun will be heard together for the first time in high-resolution audio. The beautiful string quartet, composed in Cologne in 1901, speaks full of longing of the beauty and uniqueness of his Swiss homeland. Until now, the work had not been available on recording at all. The highly passionate first violin sonata, written a few years later in Bern, is strangely known to only a few violinists, which is all the more incomprehensible since it can certainly compare with the often performed sonatas by Brahms or Fauré. Until now, this work has only been available on record in abridged and "lightened" versions. The astonishing originality, the musical "impositions" and enormous technical challenges of the work can now be fully experienced for the first time in this rewarding and stirring recording by Stefan Meier and the pianist Alexander Ruef.