Alexander String Quartet - Locale (2019)

With their latest release of “Locale” from Foghorn Classics, the Alexander String Quartet presents brand new accounts of two of Antonín Dvorák’s most enduringly popular chamber works. The “American” String Quartet in F Major, Op. 96 from 1893 was written during the composer’s extended retreat from New York City to the rural “Czech” community of Spillville, on the Turkey River in northeastern Iowa. The ASQ plumbs the rich and reflective “outdoor” nuances of this exquisitely crafted master­piece. And the miraculous pianist Joyce Yang joins the Alexanders once again for this recording of the jubilant Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81 from 1887, composed at the composer’s country home amidst Bohemia’s woods and fields in Vysoka, just a little south of Prague. These two works are among the composer’s most expressively articulate chamber works. Both are profoundly influenced by their geographic “locale” and are, perhaps, exemplars of the sophisticated duality of the transatlantic experience of the late 19th century, embracing the nostalgia of the traditional bucolic ideal and the urbane sophistication of the imminent new age. Eric Bromberger’s accompanying notes and commentary provide illuminating musical and historical context, not least some of Dvorak’s own thoughts on the American-ness of his quartet. This is the third release on Foghorn Classics celebrating the inimitable collaboration between the Alexanders and Yang. Earlier releases in­­clude the Brahms and Schumann Quintets and, most recently, the Mozart Piano Quartets. Their combined concert repertoire, among several other standard and modern works, now includes a brilliant new and much-lauded quintet from the American composer Samuel Carl Adams, commissioned to help celebrate a decade of joyful collaborative music-making.

“…the ‘American’ quartet is clearly one of the finest ever recorded” (Lynn René Bayley, Art Music Lounge)

Alexander String Quartet
Joyce Yang, piano

TRACKLIST

01. String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96, B. 179 “American”: I. Allegro ma non troppo
02. String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96, B. 179 “American”: II. Lento
03. String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96, B. 179 “American”: III. Molto vivace
04. String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96, B. 179 “American”: IV. Finale. Vivace ma non troppo
05. Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 81, B. 155: I. Allegro ma non tanto
06. Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 81, B. 155: II. Dumka. Andante con moto
07. Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 81, B. 155: III. Scherzo. Molto vivace
08. Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 81, B. 155: IV. Finale. Allegro