No one can deny that Vincent Persichetti was one of the most significant figures of modern American music, yet judged on the relative scarcity of recordings of his works since his death in 1987, he may be on the verge of becoming an unjustly neglected composer. The four string quartets that Persichetti composed between 1939 and 1972 are woefully under performed, and this 2006 release from Centaur stands alone, much to the embarrassment of other labels that have not yet touched this fine material. Thankfully, the Lydian ...
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No one can deny that Vincent Persichetti was one of the most significant figures of modern American music, yet judged on the relative scarcity of recordings of his works since his death in 1987, he may be on the verge of becoming an unjustly neglected composer. The four string quartets that Persichetti composed between 1939 and 1972 are woefully under performed, and this 2006 release from Centaur stands alone, much to the embarrassment of other labels that have not yet touched this fine material. Thankfully, the Lydian String Quartet is completely sympathetic to this overlooked quartet cycle and fully capable of traversing its many flavors, moods, and styles: from the youthful imitations of Bartók's Hungarian folk idioms in the String Quartet No. 1, Op. 7 (1939), to the more indigenous inflections of Americana in the String Quartet No. 2, Op. 24 (1944); and through the rather austere meditations of the twelve-tone based String Quartet No. 3, Op. 81 (1959), to the intricately contrapuntal String Quartet...
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