Brett Dean: Epitaphs & String Quartets Doric String Quartet

• Brett Dean (1961 - ): Epitaphs:
• 1Epitaphs: I. Only I Will Know02:14
• 2Epitaphs: II. Walk a Little Way with Me04:07
• 3Epitaphs: III. Der Philosoph04:57
• 4Epitaphs: IV. György Meets the Girl Photographer02:49
• 5Epitaphs: V. Between the Spaces in the Sky07:43
• String Quartet No. 1 "Eclipse":
• 6String Quartet No. 1 "Eclipse": I. Slow and Spacious, Secretive06:39
• 7String Quartet No. 1 "Eclipse": II. Unlikely Flight07:53
• 8String Quartet No. 1 "Eclipse": III. Epilogue04:48
• String Quartet No. 2 "And Once I Played Ophelia":
• 9String Quartet No. 2 "And Once I Played Ophelia": I. Fast, Breathless02:26
• 10String Quartet No. 2 "And Once I Played Ophelia": II. Hushed, Distant07:31
• 11String Quartet No. 2 "And Once I Played Ophelia": III. Fast, Agitated04:03
• 12String Quartet No. 2 "And Once I Played Ophelia": IV. Extremely Still03:19
• 13String Quartet No. 2 "And Once I Played Ophelia": V. Slow, Austere02:27
• Total Runtime01:00:56

Info zu Brett Dean: Epitaphs & String Quartets

Australian composer and violist Brett Dean has won many prizes for his orchestral and chamber compositions, including the most renowned of them in 2009, the Grawemeyer Award. Today his works are performed all over the world and highly praised for their aplomb and power of expression as well as their ready accessibility to listeners.

The three works featured here were composed between 2003 and 2013 and are all Premiere Recordings. They highlight the empathetic side of Dean: if Eclipse is an evocation of the refugees saved during the ‘Tampa Crisis’, the five movements of Epitaphs are individual obituaries for lost friends of Dean’s. A viola player with the Berlin Philharmonic for fourteen years, Dean joins the Doric String Quartet in the latter, a string quintet with two violas.

In the Second String Quartet, Dean presents Shakespeare’s Ophelia not as a passively suffering victim but as a ‘feistier personality’, full of passion and agility. This is echoed by the great variety of vocal facets required of the soprano here. Young yet already internationally famous and much awarded, Allison Bell will perform next year at Shakespeare’s 400th Anniversary Gala, directed by Simon Callow at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

“The assured playing of the Doric String Quartet secures admirable results, and they have been recorded in superb sound. Potton Hall confers warmth and intimacy on the performances and Kerstin Schüssler-Bach’s outstanding annotations are an added bonus This appealing release has certainly prompted me to explore Dean’s music further.” (Stephen Greenbank, MusicWeb-International)

“All three works get powerfully immediate readings from the Doric Quartet Excellent sound, decent annotations and a valuable addition to the Dean discography.” (Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone magazine)

Allison Bell, soprano
Brett Dean, viola
Doric String Quartet

The Doric String Quartet is now firmly established as one of the outstanding quartets of their generation. In 2008 they won 1st prize in the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in Japan, 2nd prize at the Premio Paolo Borciani International String Quartet Competition in Italy, where they also received a special mention for their performance of Haydn, and the Ensemble Prize at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany.

Now in its 12th season highlights over the last year have included a critically acclaimed Haydn evening at Wigmore Hall broadcast by BBC Radio 3, debut recitals in Paris (Auditorium du Louvre), Milan and Frankfurt, and visits to the Schwetzinger, Florestan, Isle of Man and East Neuk Festivals. Further afield the Quartet toured throughout Japan and returned to Israel and South East Asia. They have collaborated with Mark Padmore, Chen Halevi, Julius Drake, Piers Lane, Melvyn Tan, the Leopold String Trio and Florestan Trio.

During 2009/10 the Quartet return to Wigmore Hall four times, as Quartet and in recitals with Philip Langridge, Andrew Kennedy (for a world premiere) and Alasdair Beatson. Future engagements include recitals at the Konzerthaus in Berlin and in Lucerne, Brussels and Hamburg, return visits to Israel and Italy, and debut concerts in Australia, New Zealand, Spain, and the USA.

In November the Doric’s first commercial CD is released on the Wigmore Hall Live label of their Haydn concert at Wigmore Hall on 15 January 2009 and in 2010 they record their first CD for Chandos as part of a long-term collaboration.

Formed in 1998 at Pro Corda, The National School for Young Chamber Music Players, in Suffolk, from 2002 the Doric String Quartet studied on the Paris-based ProQuartet Professional Training Program, where they worked with members of the Alban Berg, Artemis, Hagen and LaSalle Quartets and with Gyorgy Kurtag. The Quartet continue to work with Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet) at the Music Academy in Basel.

In 2000 the Doric String Quartet won the inaugural Bristol Millennium Chamber Music Competition which led to a seven year residency at the Wiltshire Music Centre combining a concerts series with education work across the region. They continue this relationship as ‘Artists in Association’. The Quartet went on to give recitals at the Purcell Room and Wigmore Hall under the auspices of the Park Lane Group, appeared at the ORF (Austrian Radio) Funkhaus in Vienna in 2003 and made their Edinburgh Festival debut in 2006.

Alex Redington and Jonathan Stone completed their postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music in 2005 where they studied with Howard Davis. Simon Tandree studied in Saarbrücken and Detmold with Dietmut Poppen. John Myerscough graduated from Selwyn College, Cambridge in 2003 and is now a Fellow of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he studies with Louise Hopkins.

The Doric String Quartet acknowledges the generous support of an Anonymous Foundation.

Booklet für Brett Dean: Epitaphs & String Quartets