Title: Interesting additions to the 20th century quartet repertoire
Product review: The string quartet was dominated by Bartok, Shostakovich and Schoenberg in the 20th century, who each left behind impressive essays in the genre. Yet Ginastera's three quartets can hold their own amongst this dignified company. They are each from a different phase in his compositional career: the first from his early nationalist phase, in which Stravinsky and Bartok loomed as models, the second from the beginning of his expressionist period in which Berg was the dominating influence, the third from his final avant-garde phase. In the last quartet Ginastera uses many avant-garde techniques of his day, including aleatory passages and semitones. He also, borrowing a page from Schoenberg's second quartet, includes a soprano voice in some of the movements. Though I had never heard of the Lyric Quartet before buying this recording, they have a fine sound and give an admirable recording.
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