String Quartet No. 7 in f# minor, Op. 108
"...the frenzied fugue in the third movement is utterly breathtaking." -classicalsource.com
The Seventh Quartet is without doubt a highlight. The opening Allegretto is almost sprightly, but it doesn't take long to realise this is an ironic sprightliness. The slow movement is one of Shostakovich's more 'brutal' slow movements, but also one of his most successful - neither too long nor too short. It's the final Allegro, though, that's really masterful - it begins with muted(!) fortissimos from everyone, proceeds to a breakneck double-fugue before turning the fugue-subject into a leisurely waltz! The quartet comes over as one of Shostakovich's most intense (if under-heard) chamber works.-Tristan Jakob-Hoff, NZ
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Cat o' Nine Tails
Music by John Zorn (b. 1953)
Composed in 1988.
Click here to read more about this prolific composer.
Chamber Music Society Concert Date: February 25, 2008
"
I don't think of myself as a jazz or rock artist. I think of myself as someone who's using all of these different elements to create something else. But if I had to pick one line where I came from, it would be more classical than anything else." - John Zorn
About this work
"Composing 'Cat o' Nine Tails' was a breakthrough for me in terms of being able to relate to classical players on their own terms. To take advantage of classical musicians at their best, you give them written material, because that's what they do best.
But you have to inspire them from the page. I try to put as much extra musical material and information into my music as I can possibly squeeze in. A very important thing all through my musical life is to make sure that the musicians involved are having fun and like what they're doing. If that means I turn it into a game, then I turn it into a game.
If it means I have to play compositional games to excite the musicians, or include improvisational elements if I think those musicians will get into it, then I'll do that. Making it fun is the best way to get a good performance." --John Zorn
Critical Acclaim–
"Hearing the Afiara’s high-energy take on John Zorn’s 1988 work Cat O’ Nine Tails, I thought of when I first heard the rapid-fire cut-and-paste approach that he employs in works like this. Around the time this piece and others like it appeared, I enjoyed his multistylistic aesthetic as an intriguing way to fit in all the music that a composer cares about without feeling any need to attempt a synthesis.
In this case, the music alternates jarringly between extended instrumental techniques, salon music, square dances, cartoon music, dashes of other styles, and moments of brief, elegiac beauty. A lot of the music comes across comically, but the rapid shifts and multiple techniques are demanding, and the quartet brought it all off in a compelling fashion, conveying the disjointedness of Zorn’s aesthetic while keeping the music’s momentum strong. "
–San Francisco Classical Voice
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