Heath Quartet

Heath Quartet – Tchaikovsky: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 3 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:21 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

The Heath Quartet makes its harmonia mundi début with this contrasting programme of Tchaikovsky’s String Quartets: his Quartet No. 1 (famed for its plaintive “Andante cantabile”) and the tempestuous No. 3 (dedicated to the memory of Ferdinand Laub).

Since being selected by YCAT and winning 1st Prize at the Tromp Competition in 2008 the Heath Quartet has forged a strong international presence. In 2011 they were awarded a prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Special Ensemble Scholarship and undertook complete Beethoven cycles at the Facyl Festival in Salamanca and in Edinburgh. Highlights over the last year have included recitals at Wigmore Hall as part of the Emerging Talent scheme, including the premiere of a new work by Luke Bedford and collaborations with Stephen Hough and Ian Bostridge. Future engagements include complete Tippett and Bartók cycles, and a recital with the soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci at Wigmore Hall, debut recitals at the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay in Paris, return visits to the Concertgebouw and their USA debut.

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Heath Quartet – Bartok: Complete String Quartets (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:37:31 minutes | 2,82 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

A monument of chamber music: The string quartet was of central importance to Bartók throughout his career. His six quartets were written (between 1907 and 1939) at crucial turning points in the composer’s creative development. From the elegiac tone of Quartet no.1 (reflecting an unhappy love affair) to the sadness and wry parody of no.6, composed on the eve of World War II, by way of the mirror forms and atmospheric ‘night music’ of nos.4 and 5, they represent perhaps the biggest interpretative challenge in the genre alongside the Beethoven quartets. A challenge triumphantly met here by the Heath Quartet. Future plans include complete cycles of Jörg Widmann’s string quartets at Kilkenny Festival, Berlin’s Boulez Saal and Wigmore Hall, as well as numerous appearances at summer festivals in the United Kingdom and beyond. Their debut recording of Tippett’s string quartets (Wigmore Hall Live) received widespread acclaim and won the Gramophone Chamber Disk of the Year in 2016. A subsequent release on Harmonia Mundi of Tchaikovsky Quartets 1 & 3 was selected as Disk of the Week by both The Sunday Times and BBC Radio 3.

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Heath Quartet – Berg: String Quartet – Webern: Langsamer Satz – Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:05 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Classics

Signum Classics are proud to announce the first album from the Heath Quartet with acclaimed soprano Carolyn Sampson. Together the three works on the present CD demonstrate the extraordinary advances made in the development of the musical language of Schoenberg and his two chief pupils, Berg and We- bern, over a period of a mere five years at the start of the 20th century.

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