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Anton Arensky

Sono Luminus is proud to be a part of the Ying Quartet's commitment to expanding the rich string quartet repertoire with their latest release, Anton Arensky. Chamber music fans may be familiar with Arensky's beautiful and exciting "Piano Trio No. 1." Arensky's chamber music writing shows off some of his greatest strengths as a composer, and throughout his trios, quartets and quintet, his music is consistently lyrical, expressive, rich, and often brilliant. Because of Arensky's close relationship with Tchaikovsky, the release makes an intriguing follow-up to the Ying Quartet's earlier GRAMMY-nominated record, Tchaikovsky: Three String Quartets And "Souvenir de Florence" Sextet In D Minor.

Arensky actually composed two versions of his "String Quartet No. 2." One of them is scored for traditional string quartet, and the other is scored for violin, viola and 2 cellos. The musical material in bothversions is identical, but by examining the different compositional solutions Arensky arrived at for each ensemble, one can appreciate all the more his imagination for color and the facility of his writing. In the two-cello version, Arensky takes full advantage of the additional depth and fullness possible with two bass instruments; the opening of the Quartetsounds especially rich like low voices chanting together. On the otherhand, the paired violins of traditional quartet instrumentation allow many of the lyrical passages to soar and sing out in a higher range. The string quartet version of the Second Quartet is represented on this record, of course, and is in fact the less frequently performed version.