Quatuor Bozzini is reissuing an album on its own label that gained fame when Bj\u00f6rk mentioned it in an interview. It’s String Quartets by J\u00fcrg Frey, published by \u00c9ditions Wandelweiser in 2006. It is now out of print.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
String Quartets presents the Swiss composer’s first two string quartets, including the masterly and almost ghostly Streichquartett 2. For almost half an hour, delicate chords constructed in semitone harmonics and dynamics that rarely exceed triple piano follow one another with highly subtle transformations, creating a disembodied, spectral and vaporous atmosphere. Harmony is blurred to the point where a gradually building consonant framework is perceived rather than heard. Frey is an ascetic of Minimalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The first quartet is based on the same structural thinking, though it is more assertive in its gestures and volume of sound. Two miniatures complete the programme, the “Zwei allerletze S\u00e4chelchen” (Two very last things), each lasting no more than a minute. Like musical haikus, they disappear as soon as they are recited, leaving the audience to deepen their understanding long after listening.\u00a0Since this album, the Bozzinis have premiered other works by Frey, including Quartet No. 4<\/em>, which received critical acclaim last year.\u00a0A monument to austere, stoic minimalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n