In his review, Michael Jameson highly recommends the Pacifica Quartet’s new collection of stunning performances, a superb slice of Americana...
American Voices
Dvořák: String Quartet in F major ‘American’; Price: String Quartet in G major; Gruenberg: Four Diversions for String Quartet; James Lee III: Pitch In*
Pacifica Quartet; *Uniting Voices/Josephine Lee
Cedille CDR 90000 228 65:23 mins
Clip: Florence Price – Four Diversions for String Quartet
This appetising miscellany of Americana from the Pacifica Quartet opens with an invigorating account of Dvořák’s perennial F major string quartet.
Affectionately and adroitly played, theirs is a very impressive performance indeed, with buoyantly-sprung rhythms underscoring the folkish elements of this much over-subscribed work to the degree that virtually every bar sounds freshly-minted.
Particularly memorable is the cellist’s winningly under-stated playing in the Lento slow movement.
Florence Price’s music has belatedly found currency in recent times.
While derivative, hers is a distinctive yet always cultivated voice, as evidenced by this skilfully-crafted G major quartet, begun in 1929, yet sadly left incomplete.
Of its two extant movements, the lyrical outpourings of the Andante vividly recollect American hymn melodies and the Pacifica Quartet play with moving conviction.
Louis Gruenberg (1884-1964) composed prolifically across many genres, but is all but forgotten today.
His Four Diversions, Op. 32, written in 1930, are taxing and complex virtuoso studies, often jazz-influenced and brimming with excitement and incident in this stunning new account.
I knew this work only from a GM Recordings CD from 1986, now unavailable but comprehensively eclipsed by this newcomer.
Finally, you probably wouldn’t be acquring this album just for James Lee III’s meandering Pitch In (commissioned for this project); its inclusion doesn’t diminish this otherwise superb release.
Highly recommended. Michael Jameson