Beethoven, Ligeti & Lefkowitz [One Microphone Recording] [Pure DSD]

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Beethoven, Ligeti & Lefkowitz [One Microphone Recording] [Pure DSD]

Where Youthful Fire Meets Timeless Sound—Quartet Integra’s Extraordinary Debut.

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Label Yarlung Records

Artists Quartet Integra

€29,99 EUR

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Quartet Integra—Kyoka Misawa and Rintaro Kikuno on violins, Itsuki Yamamoto on viola, and cellist Ye Un Park—brings astonishing versatility and depth to music spanning the Classical, Romantic, Contemporary, and Renaissance eras. Their album Beethoven, Ligeti & Lefkowitz [Pure DSD] opens with Beethoven’s final quartet, Op. 135, a late-Romantic yet subtly backward-glancing masterpiece premiered after the composer’s death, and continues with a riveting performance of Ligeti’s explosive yet unexpectedly beautiful String Quartet No. 2, a work the ensemble delivers with clarity, humor, and fearless energy. The program concludes with the World Premiere Recording of David S. Lefkowitz’s Green Mountains, Now Black, a richly layered new work that intertwines Monteverdi quotations with the composer’s emotional response to the 2025 Los Angeles fires, blending historical resonance with urgent contemporary expression. Celebrated as the most exciting young quartet to emerge from Japan (with Ye Un from Korea) since the storied Tokyo String Quartet, these musicians carry forward a lineage nurtured by mentors Martin Beaver and Clive Greensmith and shaped by intensive training at Suntory Hall’s Chamber Music Academy—an artistic inheritance they honor with rare insight, refinement, and fire. Yarlung Producer & Recording Engineer Bob Attiyeh tells us: "For a producer, picking a favorite recording is like picking a favorite child: each one is so special and becomes a part of you. And yet, there are amazing memories that set each apart. The young musicians of Quartet Integra (Kyoka Misawa and Rintaro Kikuno on violins, Itsuki Yamamoto on viola, and cellist Ye Un Park) exhibit a professionalism far beyond their age, but once they take their places, the dynamism is only surpassed by their flawless ensemble. Each voice is distinct but is locked in perfect symmetry with its companions. They were an ABSOLUTE joy to work with! For those familiar with Yarlung’s raison d'être, a goal has not only been to provide extraordinary young musicians with a professional audio “calling card” for their portfolio, but also to showcase exciting new work especially composed for them. One of our long-term partners in this project is Yarlung’s board member Donna Morton and our friends at Coretet Commissioning Project who commissioned David S. Lefkowitz to write a piece for Quartet Integra. Using excerpts from Claudio Monteverdi's “Orfeo” as inspiration, David wrote a work that explores the very nature of what it means to be a string quartet. And he experiments with the genre, pushes boundaries, and incorporates his own despair witnessing the burning of much of Los Angeles in the spring of 2025. David and his wife Laurie could see flames and smoke not too far away from their home as he composed this work." Quartet Integra Kyoka Misawa, Violin Rintaro Kikuno, Violin Itsuki Yamamoto, Viola Ye Un Park, Cello

Tracklist

Total time: 59:57

1. String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op 135 I. Allegretto