From the deeply serious to sparkling folk music
Adresseavisen
Teacher meets pupil. Classical music meets folk music. And what a playful and elegant interaction we were presented by the Engegård Quartet and Arvid Engegård´s former violin student from Bodø, Susanne Lundeng.
The presence of the Engegård Quartet is amazing. They take musical liberties while remaining highly controlled.
Susanne Lundeng and the Engegård Quartet exude excitment and joy of playing. We are served a wide range of traditional music, from lullabies to boisterous polkas, tied together with stories from Susanne´s childhood in North Norway.
We enter a more serious dimension with Britten´s second string quartet. It is a fantastic work with both strong harmonies and vivid expression. The Engegård Quartet gave everything in their interpretation. Arvid Engegård and Alex Robson (violin), Juliet Jopling (viola) and Jan Clemens Carlsen (cello) are coordinated to their fingertips, while doing full justice to the music.
Yngvil Bjellaanes, Monday 15. April 2013
Adresseavisen
Teacher meets pupil. Classical music meets folk music. And what a playful and elegant interaction we were presented by the Engegård Quartet and Arvid Engegård´s former violin student from Bodø, Susanne Lundeng.
The presence of the Engegård Quartet is amazing. They take musical liberties while remaining highly controlled.
Susanne Lundeng and the Engegård Quartet exude excitment and joy of playing. We are served a wide range of traditional music, from lullabies to boisterous polkas, tied together with stories from Susanne´s childhood in North Norway.
We enter a more serious dimension with Britten´s second string quartet. It is a fantastic work with both strong harmonies and vivid expression. The Engegård Quartet gave everything in their interpretation. Arvid Engegård and Alex Robson (violin), Juliet Jopling (viola) and Jan Clemens Carlsen (cello) are coordinated to their fingertips, while doing full justice to the music.
Yngvil Bjellaanes, Monday 15. April 2013
Stimulating and entertaining - the Engegard Quartet from Norway played with passion and with outstanding interpretive powers.
Zeitschrift fur Kultur og Gesellschaft
The outstanding Engegård Quartet presented a Norwegian programme during Feldkirch Festival. We were taken through three traditions of Norwegian composition, staring with Edward Grieg, then Arne Nordheim and Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje. Finally we heard traditional Norwegian folk music.
The Engegård Quartet is named after its founder and first violinist Arvid Engegård. Whilst the ensemble playing was excellent, Arvid Engegård´s strong appeal was palpable. With abundant energy Engegård bound the music together. Good communication among musicians of the quartet showed that they play together as equal partners. Thus they achieved a nuanced and finely graded overall sound, which developed as the occasion demanded into both into an orchestral brilliance and into introverted sound fields with subtle pianissimos. Eloquent interpretations were served to the audience.
Wonderful workmanship
Their interpretation of the String Quartet in G minor, Op 27 by Edward Grieg showed a real ownership of the music. In particular, the ambivalence between the emotionally calm and the turbulent was masterfully created. Primarily a dance movement, the distincitve rubato in the Romance revealed echos of the first movement and "incompatible" rhythms. Shifting atmospheres and well-coordinated dynamic shadings were the hallmarks of this interpretation.
Arne Nordheim is one of Norway´s most renowned contemporary composers. Arvid Engegard and Juliet Jopling performed his duo "Duplex" (1991). Expansive and energetic gestures initiated the work, and the two voices played off each other in numerous opposing lines and power conflicts. The compositional language of String Quartet No. 1 "Tale of Lead and Light" by Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje was convincing and powerful.
Meaningful Austrian premiere
Taking Beethoven's String Quartet op 59/1 as her starting point, the 39-year-old composer Maja Ratkje´s Quartet drew one´s attention right from the start, with shimmering opening gestures. The aura of Beethoven resonated throughout. The work´s harmonic pillars were subjected to vivid and diverse musical processes.
In 2011, Norway suffered a terror attack which left the country altered for ever. Nothing was ever the same again. Thus it was impossible for Maja to continue her composition of her first Quartet without reflecting the times in Norway. Most noticeable was perhaps the reticence with which "A Tale of Lead and Light" reflected the drama. However time heals everything, and the work leans towards the light in the closing section.
...
The folk music with which the Engegård Quartet closed their concert were excellently arranged and fascinatingly performed.
16.6.2012, Silvia Thurner
Zeitschrift fur Kultur og Gesellschaft
The outstanding Engegård Quartet presented a Norwegian programme during Feldkirch Festival. We were taken through three traditions of Norwegian composition, staring with Edward Grieg, then Arne Nordheim and Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje. Finally we heard traditional Norwegian folk music.
The Engegård Quartet is named after its founder and first violinist Arvid Engegård. Whilst the ensemble playing was excellent, Arvid Engegård´s strong appeal was palpable. With abundant energy Engegård bound the music together. Good communication among musicians of the quartet showed that they play together as equal partners. Thus they achieved a nuanced and finely graded overall sound, which developed as the occasion demanded into both into an orchestral brilliance and into introverted sound fields with subtle pianissimos. Eloquent interpretations were served to the audience.
Wonderful workmanship
Their interpretation of the String Quartet in G minor, Op 27 by Edward Grieg showed a real ownership of the music. In particular, the ambivalence between the emotionally calm and the turbulent was masterfully created. Primarily a dance movement, the distincitve rubato in the Romance revealed echos of the first movement and "incompatible" rhythms. Shifting atmospheres and well-coordinated dynamic shadings were the hallmarks of this interpretation.
Arne Nordheim is one of Norway´s most renowned contemporary composers. Arvid Engegard and Juliet Jopling performed his duo "Duplex" (1991). Expansive and energetic gestures initiated the work, and the two voices played off each other in numerous opposing lines and power conflicts. The compositional language of String Quartet No. 1 "Tale of Lead and Light" by Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje was convincing and powerful.
Meaningful Austrian premiere
Taking Beethoven's String Quartet op 59/1 as her starting point, the 39-year-old composer Maja Ratkje´s Quartet drew one´s attention right from the start, with shimmering opening gestures. The aura of Beethoven resonated throughout. The work´s harmonic pillars were subjected to vivid and diverse musical processes.
In 2011, Norway suffered a terror attack which left the country altered for ever. Nothing was ever the same again. Thus it was impossible for Maja to continue her composition of her first Quartet without reflecting the times in Norway. Most noticeable was perhaps the reticence with which "A Tale of Lead and Light" reflected the drama. However time heals everything, and the work leans towards the light in the closing section.
...
The folk music with which the Engegård Quartet closed their concert were excellently arranged and fascinatingly performed.
16.6.2012, Silvia Thurner
Honesty and equilibrium to the fore as the Beethoven survey continues
Gramophone
The most interesting angle here is the varied instrumental staging and microphone placements. For the Beethoven and Bartók quartets, the chosen layout finds the viola and cello flanked either side (left and right) by the first and second violins, the Bartók responding to the slightly wider gaps between the instruments. The Nordheim is a “surround-sound” production, with the cello and viola to the fore, and the two violins to the rear. Listening conventionally, it’s the Beethoven that makes the strongest impression, with vivid antiphonal effects, especially in the first movement and the Scherzo.The performance is best where the adrenalin rush is at its most intense, whereas the Bartók Third is especially strong in the glissando-dominated opening and similarly atmospheric episode just prior to the coda. The faster, more rhythmically complex music tends to blur a little, at least in comparison with, say, the Véghs, the Hagens and the Juilliards. Arne Nordheim considers his 1956 his true “Op 1” and it is certainly auspicious, the improvisational first movement and mystical finale flanking a more urgent Intermezzo. Nordheim’s Quartet is a powerful and involving piece and repays more than a single visit, though I would like to hear it in context with other Nordheim works. This particular programme approximates a memorable, one-off concert, and as such can be recommended.
Rob Cowan, November 2010
Gramophone
The most interesting angle here is the varied instrumental staging and microphone placements. For the Beethoven and Bartók quartets, the chosen layout finds the viola and cello flanked either side (left and right) by the first and second violins, the Bartók responding to the slightly wider gaps between the instruments. The Nordheim is a “surround-sound” production, with the cello and viola to the fore, and the two violins to the rear. Listening conventionally, it’s the Beethoven that makes the strongest impression, with vivid antiphonal effects, especially in the first movement and the Scherzo.The performance is best where the adrenalin rush is at its most intense, whereas the Bartók Third is especially strong in the glissando-dominated opening and similarly atmospheric episode just prior to the coda. The faster, more rhythmically complex music tends to blur a little, at least in comparison with, say, the Véghs, the Hagens and the Juilliards. Arne Nordheim considers his 1956 his true “Op 1” and it is certainly auspicious, the improvisational first movement and mystical finale flanking a more urgent Intermezzo. Nordheim’s Quartet is a powerful and involving piece and repays more than a single visit, though I would like to hear it in context with other Nordheim works. This particular programme approximates a memorable, one-off concert, and as such can be recommended.
Rob Cowan, November 2010
A case for congratulations!
Dagbladet, Norway
The Engegård Quartet has released a CD with Beethoven, Arne Norheim and Bartok. It's a great release, which stands comfortably together with the best of national and international competition, not only because of the good sound produced again by 2L. When I've heard the Engegård Quartet in concert, I have occasionally been put off by loose phrasing or slight ensemble problems. In this release there is none of this, absolutely nothing, and even more importantly, strong interpretations. The sound world is firm and fine, intonation is secure and the portrayal of each of the quartets' characters, in this case of some of the repertoire's finest specimens, is first class. So here I would simply like to congratulate!
Ståle Wikshåland
15 October 2010
Dagbladet, Norway
The Engegård Quartet has released a CD with Beethoven, Arne Norheim and Bartok. It's a great release, which stands comfortably together with the best of national and international competition, not only because of the good sound produced again by 2L. When I've heard the Engegård Quartet in concert, I have occasionally been put off by loose phrasing or slight ensemble problems. In this release there is none of this, absolutely nothing, and even more importantly, strong interpretations. The sound world is firm and fine, intonation is secure and the portrayal of each of the quartets' characters, in this case of some of the repertoire's finest specimens, is first class. So here I would simply like to congratulate!
Ståle Wikshåland
15 October 2010
First rate quartet playing
International Record Review
Multi-composer discs (as opposed to miscellanies) went out of favour early in the CD era yet can make for an illuminating perspective on the works at hand. Such is the case with this release by the Engegård Quartet, though, for this listener at least, the programme works as well- if not better- with the three pieces heard in reverse order.
Bartok's 3rd (1927) has featured in many a recital of works diverse in era and content. This account is a notable one, creating a tangible expectancy in the "Prima parte", then finding a viable balance between clarity and intensity during the "Seconda parte". The "Recapitulazione" slightly hangs fire, but the "Coda" has no lack of decisiveness. After (or rather, before) this Arne Nordheims String Quartet (1956) is the more low-key, but the Engegård find real identity with its appealingly undemonstrative idiom - akin to Fartein Valen's in its linearity while allied to a harmonic modality allied to Per Nørdgård's music from the period. The opening "Lento" is largely preoccupied with a searchingly inward polyphony, with the ensuing "Intermezzo" an interesting rethink of the scherzo-and-trio format, and the final "Epitaffio" (arranged for String Orchestra as Nachruf) an elegy of concentrated emotion.
It throws up interesting parallels with the Adagio in Beethoven's "Harp", not least in the alternation of its modally inflected main theme with the more taciturn episodes, across which the Engegård ensures no lack of continuity. The first movement is finely done, especially the pizzicato-lead transition back to the reprise, while the Scherzo has the right combination of propulsiveness and rhetoric. The Finale, though, is a shade dead-pan - it's variations seeming almost non-plussed in their follow-through.
Superbly recorded and reasonably annotated (albeit a little too weighted towards the Beethoven), the Engegård disc can be recommended for its questing programme as well as some first-rate quartet playing.
Richard Whitehouse, January 2011
International Record Review
Multi-composer discs (as opposed to miscellanies) went out of favour early in the CD era yet can make for an illuminating perspective on the works at hand. Such is the case with this release by the Engegård Quartet, though, for this listener at least, the programme works as well- if not better- with the three pieces heard in reverse order.
Bartok's 3rd (1927) has featured in many a recital of works diverse in era and content. This account is a notable one, creating a tangible expectancy in the "Prima parte", then finding a viable balance between clarity and intensity during the "Seconda parte". The "Recapitulazione" slightly hangs fire, but the "Coda" has no lack of decisiveness. After (or rather, before) this Arne Nordheims String Quartet (1956) is the more low-key, but the Engegård find real identity with its appealingly undemonstrative idiom - akin to Fartein Valen's in its linearity while allied to a harmonic modality allied to Per Nørdgård's music from the period. The opening "Lento" is largely preoccupied with a searchingly inward polyphony, with the ensuing "Intermezzo" an interesting rethink of the scherzo-and-trio format, and the final "Epitaffio" (arranged for String Orchestra as Nachruf) an elegy of concentrated emotion.
It throws up interesting parallels with the Adagio in Beethoven's "Harp", not least in the alternation of its modally inflected main theme with the more taciturn episodes, across which the Engegård ensures no lack of continuity. The first movement is finely done, especially the pizzicato-lead transition back to the reprise, while the Scherzo has the right combination of propulsiveness and rhetoric. The Finale, though, is a shade dead-pan - it's variations seeming almost non-plussed in their follow-through.
Superbly recorded and reasonably annotated (albeit a little too weighted towards the Beethoven), the Engegård disc can be recommended for its questing programme as well as some first-rate quartet playing.
Richard Whitehouse, January 2011
Det här kan säkert framstå som en av höjdpunkterna när festivalen sammanfattas till helgen.
Helsingborgs Dagblad/Nordvästra Skånes Tidningar (HD/NST)/Henrik Halvarson, 29 juni 2012
När det var dags för Engegårdkvartetten att äntra podiet så ägde de gudskelov det helt själva. Och vilken skillnad det gjorde. Deras framförande av Felix Mendelssohns Ess-durkvartett op 12 rensade luften från alla putslustigheter. Mendelssohns förunderligt självklara och omedelbart verkande musik klingade så naturligt i deras tolkning. Det var bara att öppna sitt sinne och låta allt sjunka in utan att tänka efter. Från den försiktiga inledningen och det alltmer intensiva spelet mellan stämmorna, över den läckra canzonettan och den melodiösa tredje satsen till den virvlande finalen som till slut faller ned i inledningens lugn. Det här kan säkert framstå som en av höjdpunkterna när festivalen sammanfattas till helgen.
Helsingborgs Dagblad/Nordvästra Skånes Tidningar (HD/NST)/Henrik Halvarson, 29 juni 2012
När det var dags för Engegårdkvartetten att äntra podiet så ägde de gudskelov det helt själva. Och vilken skillnad det gjorde. Deras framförande av Felix Mendelssohns Ess-durkvartett op 12 rensade luften från alla putslustigheter. Mendelssohns förunderligt självklara och omedelbart verkande musik klingade så naturligt i deras tolkning. Det var bara att öppna sitt sinne och låta allt sjunka in utan att tänka efter. Från den försiktiga inledningen och det alltmer intensiva spelet mellan stämmorna, över den läckra canzonettan och den melodiösa tredje satsen till den virvlande finalen som till slut faller ned i inledningens lugn. Det här kan säkert framstå som en av höjdpunkterna när festivalen sammanfattas till helgen.
The playing is breathtaking...
The Strad
The playing is breathtaking and the cumulative effect would be exhausting if it were not so exciting. Over the top? Perhaps – but I am already looking forward to hearing it again.
Tully Potter
of the Engegård Quartet's debut CD from 2008
The Strad
The playing is breathtaking and the cumulative effect would be exhausting if it were not so exciting. Over the top? Perhaps – but I am already looking forward to hearing it again.
Tully Potter
of the Engegård Quartet's debut CD from 2008
A triumph!
International Record Review
As a whole, for a debut disc, it seems a triumph!
Calum McDonald
International Record Review
As a whole, for a debut disc, it seems a triumph!
Calum McDonald
Four souls - one spirit
Dagsavisen, Norway
Playful and elegant, with nuances of a nature rarely heard before. With their new release the Engegård quartet meets all my expectations created from their debut CD.
Kjell Hillveg
July 2010
Dagsavisen, Norway
Playful and elegant, with nuances of a nature rarely heard before. With their new release the Engegård quartet meets all my expectations created from their debut CD.
Kjell Hillveg
July 2010
How they loved Bartok!
The Irish Times
What was interesting was how they loved Bartok! Bartok embodies a raw, elemental spirit of immense, ferocious strength. In the Engegård Quartet's hugely committed and spirited performance, this force surged through the acoustic morass and pounded the audience who roared their approval at the end.
Michael Dungan
April 2009
The Irish Times
What was interesting was how they loved Bartok! Bartok embodies a raw, elemental spirit of immense, ferocious strength. In the Engegård Quartet's hugely committed and spirited performance, this force surged through the acoustic morass and pounded the audience who roared their approval at the end.
Michael Dungan
April 2009
Contrasts
Aftenposten, Norway
Chamber music experiences with exciting contrasts and life giving music making.... There was a tangible glow and commitment to their interpretations... which will be remembered.
Idar Karevold
Summer 2007
Aftenposten, Norway
Chamber music experiences with exciting contrasts and life giving music making.... There was a tangible glow and commitment to their interpretations... which will be remembered.
Idar Karevold
Summer 2007
Och Engegårdkvartetten spelade med största precision och inlevelse.
Helsingborgs Dagblad/Nordvästra Skånes Tidningar (HD/NST)Henrik Halvarson, 30 juni 2012:
I dessa omständigheter var det Engegårdkvartetten som klarade sig mest helskinnade när de spelade ”A Tale of Lead and Light”, komponerat av festivalens huskomponist Maja S K Ratkje. Skrivet under intryck av massakern på Utöya för ett år sen kännetecknades musiken av en rastlös pendling mellan ljus och mörker, lugn och ro, harmoni och dissonans. Gång på gång är det som om musiken faller sönder och samlar ihop sig på nytt.
Det var första gången jag hörde ett verk av Maja S K Ratkje och med ett så koncentrerat tonspråk var det svårt att få ett ordentligt grepp om stycket. Men allvaret och engagemanget i ”A Tale of Lead and Light” gick det inte att ta miste på. Och Engegårdkvartetten spelade med största precision och inlevelse.
Helsingborgs Dagblad/Nordvästra Skånes Tidningar (HD/NST)Henrik Halvarson, 30 juni 2012:
I dessa omständigheter var det Engegårdkvartetten som klarade sig mest helskinnade när de spelade ”A Tale of Lead and Light”, komponerat av festivalens huskomponist Maja S K Ratkje. Skrivet under intryck av massakern på Utöya för ett år sen kännetecknades musiken av en rastlös pendling mellan ljus och mörker, lugn och ro, harmoni och dissonans. Gång på gång är det som om musiken faller sönder och samlar ihop sig på nytt.
Det var första gången jag hörde ett verk av Maja S K Ratkje och med ett så koncentrerat tonspråk var det svårt att få ett ordentligt grepp om stycket. Men allvaret och engagemanget i ”A Tale of Lead and Light” gick det inte att ta miste på. Och Engegårdkvartetten spelade med största precision och inlevelse.
The ensemble bubbles with energy and temperament
Dagsavisen, Norway
The ensemble bubbles with energy and temperament...delivers playing which takes one's breath away...
Kjell Hillveg, who chose Engegård Quartet's debut album from 2008 as the year's classical choice released in Norway.
Dagsavisen, Norway
The ensemble bubbles with energy and temperament...delivers playing which takes one's breath away...
Kjell Hillveg, who chose Engegård Quartet's debut album from 2008 as the year's classical choice released in Norway.
One more Maestro Ensemble!
Luxembourg
A highly intense and magisterial interpretation of Beethoven's Opus 74 quartet "The Harp". The Engegård Quartet is proof that there is no shortage of world-class chamber music ensembles today.
Loll Weber
October 2008
Luxembourg
A highly intense and magisterial interpretation of Beethoven's Opus 74 quartet "The Harp". The Engegård Quartet is proof that there is no shortage of world-class chamber music ensembles today.
Loll Weber
October 2008
A joy to experience
Dagbladet.no
Oslo Chamber Music Festival
At the concert in Oslo's Military Community yesterday evening the relatively young Engegård Quartet really blossomed. It was a joy to experience, not least because it just went on and on, from a good start wiht Haydn Opus 76/6, until they finished with Griegs String Quartet in G minor which they played with red hot energy.
The audience were really delighted, and the quartets response was two tangos under Atle Sponberg's leadership. I haven't experienced a better finish to a concert for a long time.
Ståle Wikshåland
16.08.2007
Dagbladet.no
Oslo Chamber Music Festival
At the concert in Oslo's Military Community yesterday evening the relatively young Engegård Quartet really blossomed. It was a joy to experience, not least because it just went on and on, from a good start wiht Haydn Opus 76/6, until they finished with Griegs String Quartet in G minor which they played with red hot energy.
The audience were really delighted, and the quartets response was two tangos under Atle Sponberg's leadership. I haven't experienced a better finish to a concert for a long time.
Ståle Wikshåland
16.08.2007
It's really happening in Bergen.
VG, Norway
The Engegård Quartet closed the concert with an expressive and gripping performance of Beethovens quartet number 8 in E minor. These are clearly musicians with a real concept for sound and structure. It's really happening in Bergen.
Tori Skredde
Saturday 26th May 2007
VG, Norway
The Engegård Quartet closed the concert with an expressive and gripping performance of Beethovens quartet number 8 in E minor. These are clearly musicians with a real concept for sound and structure. It's really happening in Bergen.
Tori Skredde
Saturday 26th May 2007
Music from another world
Helsingborgs Dagblad, Sweden
...in the first two movements, the Engegård Quartet and Frans Helmerson brought time to a standstill. In spite of the slow tempi I wanted the music to carry on forever.
Henrik Halvarson
14.10.2010
Helsingborgs Dagblad, Sweden
...in the first two movements, the Engegård Quartet and Frans Helmerson brought time to a standstill. In spite of the slow tempi I wanted the music to carry on forever.
Henrik Halvarson
14.10.2010
Beethoven/Norheim/Bartok
The Strad
Arne Nordheim's readily attractive Quartet, effectively the Norwegian's first published opus, flits in and out of tonality. Largely quiet and sombre, it is played with a wide range of muted colours and bright shafts of light, with Juliet Jopling's viola adding a poignant voice in the final section.
David Denton, January 2011
The Strad
Arne Nordheim's readily attractive Quartet, effectively the Norwegian's first published opus, flits in and out of tonality. Largely quiet and sombre, it is played with a wide range of muted colours and bright shafts of light, with Juliet Jopling's viola adding a poignant voice in the final section.
David Denton, January 2011
Finale with Style
Dagbladet Roskilde, Denmark
Their programme was an enormous challenge both technically and musically but we were in the best of hands with the Engegård Quartet.
Knud Erik Kengen
11.3.2010
Dagbladet Roskilde, Denmark
Their programme was an enormous challenge both technically and musically but we were in the best of hands with the Engegård Quartet.
Knud Erik Kengen
11.3.2010
One of the best concerts - ever!
Altaposten, Norway
The Engegard Quartet had the recipe for one of the best concerts in Alta - ever!
October 31 2008
Altaposten, Norway
The Engegard Quartet had the recipe for one of the best concerts in Alta - ever!
October 31 2008
Elegant and Expressive
Göteborgsposten, Sweden
Excellent quartets are hard to find but the Engegård Quartet really showed what they are worth in their debut concert in Göteborg...
Their virtuosic playing was impressive, and the physical sensation of the harmonic tension was tangible.
Magnus Haglund
13.10.2010
Göteborgsposten, Sweden
Excellent quartets are hard to find but the Engegård Quartet really showed what they are worth in their debut concert in Göteborg...
Their virtuosic playing was impressive, and the physical sensation of the harmonic tension was tangible.
Magnus Haglund
13.10.2010
At the top of it's game.
Magasinet Klassisk
The first CD by the Engegårdkvartetten reveals an ensemble at the absolute top of its game. It opens with one of the most refreshing Haydn performances I have heard in years: a model of good taste but also fizzing with energy and life – and that unbearably moving Largo is delivered with heart-breaking poise (it’s not often I sit at my desk with tears rolling down my cheeks). Leif Solberg (f. 1914) came to wider public notice only in 1996 when a CD of his organ music revealed that Norway had been ignoring one of its finest composers. In the 12 years since then, his Symphony (1951–52) got its first professional performance in 1998 and one of his choral pieces was recorded in a transcription for strings – and that’s all. Shame on Norway’s musicians, and bravo to the Engegårds for allowing us (and the composer) to hear this first recording of his only string quartet, composed in 1945. It is a sparkling gem of a work: cast in a Classical mould and steeped in the heritage of Grieg and Norwegian folk-music more generally, it would be a concert favourite if only audiences got a chance to hear it.
The disc closes with an account of the Grieg Quartet which has a raw power that made me sit up in astonishment. That brief, broad opening opens a wild ride of thrilling impetuosity where every accentuation, every dynamic contrast, every texture is made to tell. It’s also a reading which takes the work closer to its Norwegian roots than any performance I know: just listen to the evocations of hardingfele in the trio of the Intermezzo. The Grieg Quartet is often denigrated for not being especially quartettmässig; the Engegårds play with a passion which destined all such criticism for the dustbin. Quite simply, this is one of great recorded performances: Furtwängler’s Tristan, Klemperer’s Missa solemnis, the Busch Quartet’s Op. 131 – it really is that good. Morten Lindberg’s label 2L presents the entire thing in recorded sound of stunning immediacy. This is one CD you should not miss.
Martin Anderson
Sept 2008
Magasinet Klassisk
The first CD by the Engegårdkvartetten reveals an ensemble at the absolute top of its game. It opens with one of the most refreshing Haydn performances I have heard in years: a model of good taste but also fizzing with energy and life – and that unbearably moving Largo is delivered with heart-breaking poise (it’s not often I sit at my desk with tears rolling down my cheeks). Leif Solberg (f. 1914) came to wider public notice only in 1996 when a CD of his organ music revealed that Norway had been ignoring one of its finest composers. In the 12 years since then, his Symphony (1951–52) got its first professional performance in 1998 and one of his choral pieces was recorded in a transcription for strings – and that’s all. Shame on Norway’s musicians, and bravo to the Engegårds for allowing us (and the composer) to hear this first recording of his only string quartet, composed in 1945. It is a sparkling gem of a work: cast in a Classical mould and steeped in the heritage of Grieg and Norwegian folk-music more generally, it would be a concert favourite if only audiences got a chance to hear it.
The disc closes with an account of the Grieg Quartet which has a raw power that made me sit up in astonishment. That brief, broad opening opens a wild ride of thrilling impetuosity where every accentuation, every dynamic contrast, every texture is made to tell. It’s also a reading which takes the work closer to its Norwegian roots than any performance I know: just listen to the evocations of hardingfele in the trio of the Intermezzo. The Grieg Quartet is often denigrated for not being especially quartettmässig; the Engegårds play with a passion which destined all such criticism for the dustbin. Quite simply, this is one of great recorded performances: Furtwängler’s Tristan, Klemperer’s Missa solemnis, the Busch Quartet’s Op. 131 – it really is that good. Morten Lindberg’s label 2L presents the entire thing in recorded sound of stunning immediacy. This is one CD you should not miss.
Martin Anderson
Sept 2008
Poles apart - but musically at one
Gjøvik, Norway
The Engegård Quartet phrases as if they had one brain and express themselves as if they were a forty-fingered monster.
Petter Skretting
Gjøvik, Norway
The Engegård Quartet phrases as if they had one brain and express themselves as if they were a forty-fingered monster.
Petter Skretting