Michael Fine: String Quartet No. 3 Studio 9 Quartet

• Michael Fine: String Quartet No. 3:
• 1 Fine: String Quartet No. 3: I. Lento con passione, agitato 05:57
• 2 Fine: String Quartet No. 3: II. Allegretto leggiero e scherzando 03:04
• 3 Fine: String Quartet No. 3: III. Largo 05:41
• 4 Fine: String Quartet No. 3: IV. Andante 03:14
• Total Runtime 17:56

Info for Michael Fine: String Quartet No. 3

Paris-based label Evidence Classics will release a new EP devoted to Michael Fine’s String Quartet No. 3 (2017), performed by the Studio 9 Quartet.

Recorded at Dom Studio, St Petersburg, the EP features violinists Lina Vartanova and Aisylu Saifullina, violist Andrey Serdiukovskii, and cellist Andrey Efimovskii. The balance engineer for the recording is Andres Izmaylov. This new release marks the Studio 9 Quartet’s second EP devoted to Michael Fine’s music. Their recording of Fine’s String Quartet No. 4 was released last year by Evidence Classics and has since found a place on numerous playlists across the major streaming services, introducing Fine’s quartet writing to an expanding international audience.

Composed in 2017, String Quartet No. 3 reveals Fine’s growing command of the genre. The work combines serious and playful elements within the composer’s distinctive post-romantic harmonic language. Across its four movements, Fine balances lyrical intensity, rhythmic lightness, expressive breadth, and intimate reflection, giving each instrument the opportunity to emerge as a solo voice while also engaging in vivid dialogue with the ensemble.

The quartet writing displays Fine’s characteristic ear for rich sonorities and natural instrumental interplay. Individual lines move freely in and out of prominence, creating a texture in which the four players speak both independently and as a unified body. The result is a work of emotional directness, structural clarity, and warmly resonant colour. Michael Fine: String Quartet No. 3 (2017)

Studio 9 Quartet:

Lina Vartanova, violin
Aisylu Saifullina, violin
Andrey Serdiukovskii, viola
Andrey Efimovskii, cello

Recorded at Dom Studio, St Petersburg Released by Evidence Classics, Paris

Michael Fine
is an American composer and Grammy Award winning recording producer whose music combines lyrical immediacy, formal clarity, and a deeply expressive harmonic language. His works include orchestral, chamber, and vocal music, with a catalogue that reflects his long engagement with performers and the recorded medium.

Studio 9 Quartet
brings together four distinguished St Petersburg-based musicians: Lina Vartanova, Aisylu Saifullina, Andrey Serdiukovskii, and Andrey Efimovskii. The ensemble’s continuing collaboration with Michael Fine has produced recordings that highlight both the intimacy and expressive range of his quartet writing.

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