Oslo String Quartet - Learn To Wait: Britten, Asheim & Ligeti (2024) [Hi-Res]

For the first time, the Oslo String Quartet has released a new album on its own label called OSQ. Learn to Wait offers a fine choice of early productions of Britten and Ligeti, combining it with a contemporary work by Nils Henrik Asheim written during the pandemic, giving the name to the whole release.

The four musicians — violinists Geir Inge Lotsberg and Liv Hilde Klokk, violist Magnus Boye Hansen, and cellist Øystein Sonstad — are well known on the international chamber music scene and, nowadays a rare feature, are playing for more than 30 years in a stable formation. You can add that they are well provided with first-class instruments, a fully present detail at every moment of this recording.

The program starts with Benjamin Britten. The String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 25, is one of his most substantial early works and reflects the unique fusion of traditional forms with his evolving modern style.

Britten composed the quartet in 1941 during his time in the United States, living in self-imposed exile from war-torn Europe. He completed it while staying in California. The quartet was commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, an American arts patron who had supported other major composers, including Bartók and Stravinsky.

The premiere took place on September 21, 1941, in Los Angeles. It was well-received and marked a turning point for Britten, cementing his reputation as a serious composer of chamber music. Britten was 27 at the time, and although he had already made a name for himself with works like Sinfonia da Requiem and Les Illuminations, this quartet demonstrated his growing maturity and command of the string quartet form.