Customer Reviews

Ravel-String Quartet & Sonata for Violin & Cello-Borromeo Quartet

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Maurice Ravel has never been one of my favorites, but I am a sucker for strings and the Borromeo String Quartet do an outstanding job making Ravel accessable on this CD, which won the Chamber Music America/WQXR Award for Recording Excellence in 2001.

Recorded at the historic Methuen Memorial Music Hall near Boston, this 1991 release devotes 28:46 minutes to Ravel's String Quartet and 20:36 minutes to his Sonata for Violin & Cello.

According to the liner notes, Ravel's stated aim in writing the String Quartet was "...to create the illusion of an instrument with sixteen strings, but just one bow. " He succeeded.

Ravel completed this String Quartet in 1903 when he was 28 years old. It was not performed for over a year but, when it was, it was considered to be the reason that he was snubbed for the 1905 Prix de Rome. Some of the members of the Prix de Rome jury imagined Ravel had written it to mock them! Though the romantically melancholy yet youthful string quartet was a huge hit with audiences at the time - and ever since.

The Sonata, composed off and on between 1920-1922 has a darker, more modern feel. It is not a "pretty" piece of music. (Ravel was strongly influenced by "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari" - one of the first horror films.)

The Borromeo String Quartet was formed in 1989 by four young musicians from the Curtis Institute of Music. Today they are one of the most in demand string quartets, regularly booked at prestigious venues worldwide from Berlin's Philharmonie, Tokyo's Suntory Hall, Paris' Opera Bastille, to New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. They have served as Ensemble-in-Residence for National Public Radio and are now Quartet-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory.

Highly recommended for those who like Ravel and/or string quartets.