Description
When Kronos plays a piece, they become fellow composers, true collaborators. Without them, we wouldnt have the kind of string quartet playing that we find around us today. There are two kinds of string quartet playing: the Before Kronos and the After Kronos. Philip Glass
Kronos Quartet has broken the boundaries of what string quartets can do. New York Times
Nonesuch releases Kronos Quartets acclaimed album Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass on vinyl for the first time to coincide with Kronos Quartet: Five Decades, a year-long celebration marking the quartets 50th anniversary. Originally released in 1995, the album features David Harrington (violin), John Sherba, (violin), Hank Dutt (viola) and Joan Jeanrenaud (cello) performing Quartet No. 2 (Company) (1983), No. 3 (Mishima) (1985), No. 4 (Buczak) (1990), and No. 5 (1991), the first piece Glass wrote especially for Kronos. Recorded at Skywalker Sound in California, the album was produced by Judith Sherman, Kurt Munkacsi and Philip Glass. The cover art features Francesco Clementes painting The Four Corners (1985). At the time of the albums release, the New York Times said, It contains some of Glasss best music since Koyaanisqatsi. His ear for sumptuous string sonorities is undeniable, while the Washington Post called it An ideal combination of composer and performers. It was a top 10 hit on Billboards Top Classical Albums, and spent 12 weeks on Billboards Classical chart.
In his original liner note, critic Mark Swed wrote, Glass string quartets may contain his most intimate music. They are works through which a very public composer, perhaps the most important opera reformer of our age and a longstanding collaborator in large-scale music theater, holds up a mirror to himself and his way of composing. In an odd way, Glass explains, string quartets have always functioned like that for composers. I dont really know why, but its almost impossible to get away from it. Its the way composers of the past have thought and thats no less true for me. Its almost as if we say were going to write a string quartet, we take a deep breath, and we wade in to try to write the most serious, significant piece that we can. Glass says that as he sat down to write String Quartet No. 5, he had discovered that perhaps not taking a serious tone might be the most serious way to deal with it. I was thinking that I had really gone beyond the need to write a serious string quartet and that I could write a quartet that is about musicality, which in a certain way is the most serious subject.
Glass first numbered quartet was written in 1966; however, he did not return to the string quartet medium until 1983, when he provided incidental music for a dramatization of Samuel Becketts prose poem, Company. During those 17 years, Glass had formed an ensemble and developed his style in a series of increasingly elaborate pieces for it. String Quartet No. 3 is also adapted to dramatic music, this time from his score to the 1985 Paul Schrader film, Mishima. It was with the music of Mishima that Kronos became associated with Glass, recording the string quartet sections of the soundtrack and subsequently working extensively with the composer on all five of his numbered quartets. Kronos also gave the first concert performances of Company and Mishima. String Quartet No. 4 was composed in remembrance of the artist Brian Buczak, who died of AIDS in 1988.
As Kronos anniversary season continues with further concerts around the world, Nonesuch will reissue Black Angels on vinyl on February 16. First released in 1990, the award-winning album includes George Crumbs title piece, which inspired David Harrington to found the quartet. Called an unusually elevated and searing Vietnam War protest by the New York Times, it sets a dark, powerful tone for this collection, which addresses the political/physical/spiritual consequences of war. Also featured are works by Charles Ives, István Márta, Thomas Tallis, and Dmitri Shostakovich. Stylishly packaged, intelligently programmed, superbly recorded and brilliantly performed, proclaimed Gramophone. In short, very much the sort of disc weve come to expect from the talented and imaginative Kronos Quartet. The Evening Standard included it among its 100 Definitive Classical Albums of the 20th Century.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1937, Philip Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. By 1974, he had created a large collection of music for The Philip Glass Ensemble. The period culminated in the landmark opera, Einstein on the Beach. Since Einstein, Glasss repertoire has grown to include music for opera, dance, theatre, orchestra, and film. His scores have received Academy Award nominations (including Kundun and The Hours, as well as Notes on a Scandal) and a Golden Globe (The Truman Show). Recent works include his memoir, Words Without Music, his first Piano Sonata, opera Circus Days and Nights, and Symphony No. 14. Glass received the Praemium Imperiale in 2012, the US National Medal of the Arts from President Barack Obama in 2016, and 41st Kennedy Center Honors in 2018.
Nonesuchs relationship with Glass began in 1985, with the release of the score for Paul Schraders Mishima featuring Kronos Quartet. Over the years other Glass works on Nonesuch have included Einstein on the Beach (1993), Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass (1995), Music in Twelve Parts (1996), Glass Box (2008), as well as the soundtracks for Powaqqatsi (1988), Kundun (1997), Koyaanisqatsi (1998), and The Hours (2002), amongst others.
For 50 years, San Franciscos Kronos Quartet David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Paul Wiancko (cello) has challenged and reimagined what a string quartet can be. Founded at a time when the form was largely centred on long-established, Western European traditions, Kronos has been at the forefront of revolutionizing the string quartet into a living art form that responds to the people and issues of our time. In the process, Kronos has become one of the most celebrated and influential groups of our era, performing thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 70 recordings of extraordinary breadth and creativity, and collaborating with many of the worlds most accomplished composers and performers. Through its nonprofit organization, Kronos Performing Arts Association, Kronos has commissioned more than 1,000 works and arrangements for string quartet including the Kronos Fifty for the Future library of free, educational repertoire. Kronos has received more than 40 awards, including three Grammy Awards and the Polar Music, Avery Fisher, and Edison Klassiek Oeuvre Prizes.
Kronos is prolific and wide-ranging on recordings. The ensembles expansive discography on Nonesuch includes three Grammy-winning albums: Terry Rileys Sun Rings (2019), Landfall with Laurie Anderson (2018), and Alban Bergs Lyric Suite featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw (2003); the 40th-anniversary boxed set Kronos Explorer Series; Nuevo (2002), a Grammy- and Latin Grammynominated celebration of Mexican culture; Pieces of Africa (1992), a showcase of African-born composers that simultaneously topped Billboards Classical and World Music charts; and Folk Songs (2017), Nonesuchs 50th album with Kronos, which featured Sam Amidon, Olivia Chaney, Rhiannon Giddens, and Natalie Merchant singing traditional folk songs.
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