Audio

Mendelssohn String Quartets Vol.3

Praised by The Gramophone for the ‘deep feeling’ of its playing on Volume 1 (8.570001) and hailed for ‘what promises to be an outstanding set’ (Vol. 2, 8.570002), the New Zealand String Quartet here completes its recording of all the Mendelssohn Quartets. The composer’s first essay in the form, a strikingly accomplished work by a fourteen-year-old, is presented alongside his personal favourite, the D major, Op. 44, No. 1. This last of the three Op. 44 Quartets to be written is notable for its suave Minuet and a particularly expressive Andante. In the Op. 81 Theme and Variations and Scherzo from the last year of his life melancholy and magic meet in typical Mendelssohnian manner. Listen now.

May 2010 Naxos Classical Catalogue 8.570003

Producer: Bonnie Silver & Norbert Kraft

Engineer: Norbert Kraft

Gillian Whitehead - Puhake ki te rangi

Music for European and Maori traditional instruments. See more on the SOUNZ website.

“In 1989, I heard for the first time, in a presentation given by Richard Nunns, the sounds of the taonga puoro (singing treasures), which spoke to me very strongly of the spirituality of my Maori heritage. I began working with these instruments several years later, and I have found myself drawn to explore in my own language the world of sound that might have surrounded pre-European Maori. Though the function of the instruments was of course very different in that world, I have tried to use them in a way that does relate to their traditional use.” - Gillian Whitehead, composer

2008 Atoll CD Ltd ACD 107
Producer: Wayne Laird

Bartók - The Complete String Quartets

Two CD set featuring all six Bartok string quartets.

2009 Atoll CD Ltd. ACD 119

Originally issued as CD Manu 1551/3 (1998 Ode Records)

Producer: Tom Rolston

Engineers: Martin Williams, Keith Warren

Digital editing and mastering: Wayne Laird

Berg: String Quartet / Lyric Suite / Wolf: Italian Serenade

Alban Berg’s two works for string quartet alone are enough to place him with the foremost exponents of the quartet medium during the first half of the twentieth century. The String Quartet, Op. 3, completed in 1910, is both a graduation exercise and also the composer’s first extended foray into the non-tonal regions that were then being explored by Schoenberg and Webern. Berg’s highly expressive Lyric Suite, inspired by his love-affair with the wife of a family friend, is notable for its unconventional six-movement form, the odd-numbered of which become progressively faster and more disruptive, while the even numbered ones become progressively slower and more intense. Hugo Wolf’s Italian Serenade is a lighthearted piece later orchestrated as the first movement of a larger suite. Listen now.

June 2007 Naxos Classical Catalogue 8.557374
Producer: Wayne Laird
Engineer: Paul McGlashan

Debussy & Ravel

A CD recording of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel's string quartets.

1999 Atoll CD Ltd ACD 399

Producer: Wayne Laird

Engineer: Sam Negri