![Eybler Quartet – Beethoven String Quartets Op. 18, Nos. 4-6 (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/01/19/cyqqlc536hlka_600.md.jpg)
Eybler Quartet – Beethoven String Quartets Op. 18, Nos. 4-6 (2019) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
Opus 18 needs little introduction and is often revered as demonstrating Beethoven’s total mastery of the Classical String Quartet. The Eybler Quartet completes its exploration of these iconic quartets in an album that showcases radiantly Beethoven’s fiendishly difficult tempi and his genius for finding contrast within a single pulse as well as highlighting the depths of his humour, wit and irony. This second volume features the String Quartets nos. 4-6.
The Eybler Quartet came together in 2004 to explore the works of the first century -and-a-half of the string quartet and plays on instruments appropriate to the period of the music it performs. The Toronto-based ensemble’s live performances have consistently garnered praise as “glowing and committed”, “spirited” and “lively and energizing”. The Eybler Quartet harnesses a unique combination of talents and skills: razor-sharp ensemble skills, technical prowess, expertise in period instrument performance and an unquenchable passion for the repertoire.
![Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Kirsty Hopkins, Mark Dobell – Howard Goodall: Invictus. A Passion (2018) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/11/21/cveyoc4uy0otb_600.md.jpg)
Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Kirsty Hopkins, Mark Dobell – Howard Goodall: Invictus. A Passion (2018) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
Persecution of the innocent, malevolent authority exerting itself against ideas that threaten and challenge, the power of a peaceful, loving humility in the face of tyranny, the facing-down of fear. Such is the power of the Passion story and so it appears in Howard Goodall’s new work, Invictus: A Passion. Forty-five years of writing musical theatre (as well as some more hilarious scores for Mr. Bean and for Blackadder!) has inevitably shaped the way he sets narrative texts, carefuly avoiding the abstract, opaque or overly elusive. Likewise he makes no apology for his musical idiom being very, very approachable. Goodall has found a route directly to people’s hearts, telling the story afresh through his choice of texts – not the Gospels but poems by various female authors: Gethsemane by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Mary Magdalene and the Other Mary by Christina Georgina Rossetti and Slave Auction by Ellen Watkins Harper, interwoven with the 1611 verse narrative of the biblical Passion by Æmelia Lanyer née Bassano, one of the first books published in the English language by a female poet. The world premiere recording of this brand new choral work is performed by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, with the Lanyer Ensemble and soloists from The Sixteen, conducted by Stephen Darlington, the very same team that gave the European premiere in May 2018.