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CRISTÓBAL HALFFTER

The String Quartets Vol.2

2nd Streichquartet (Mémoires 1970)
Con bravura y sentimiento
Zeitgestalt,

String Quartet No. 7
“Espacio de silencio”


Arditti Quartet

Anemos C33007

Described by Tomas Marco Spanish Music in the Twentieth Century as one of the two main composers of the Generation of '51 (the other, Luis de Pablo, has been extensively reviewed in Musical Pointers) these quartets are busy, modernist music, with a penchant for quotation, presented wth the Ardittis usual high virtuosity.

The second explores dynamic extremes, culminating with a passage that leads to a prolonged "extinction of sound on the verge of an inaudible murmur ppppp" [Germán Gan].

The notes as translated are difficult - and printed in miniscule pale type - but the presentation is remarkable, a lavish hard cover book, replete with art work and pictures.

The music is exhilarating and well worth listening to, and makes me keen to hear Vol 1.

Peter Grahame Woolf