American Portraits Pacifica Quartet

• Samuel Barber (1910 - 1981): String Quartet, Op. 11:
• 1 Barber: String Quartet, Op. 11: I. Molto allegro e appassionato 08:18
• 2 Barber: String Quartet, Op. 11: II. Molto adagio 08:13
• 3 Barber: String Quartet, Op. 11: III. Molto allegro 02:28
• Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972): The Edge of Everything:
• 4 Frank: The Edge of Everything: Elegy for Rachel Louise Carson 12:49
• George Walker (1922 - 2018): Lyric for Strings:
• 5 Walker: Lyric for Strings 06:18
• Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962): Steps for Justice:
• 6 Higdon: Steps for Justice 14:51
• George Crumb (1929 - 2022): Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land I. Departure 1. Threnody I:
• 7 Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land I. Departure 1. Threnody I: Night of the Electric Insects 01:35
• Black Angels:
• 8 Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land I. Departure 2. Sounds of Bones and Flutes 00:45
• 9 Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land I. Departure 3. Lost Bells 01:07
• 10 Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land I. Departure 4. Devil Music 01:35
• 11 Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land I. Departure 5. Danse Macabre 01:07
• 12 Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land II. Absence 6. Pavana Lachrymae 01:00
• 13 Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land II. Absence 7. Threnody II: Black Angels! 02:15
• 14 Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land II. Absence 8. Sarabanda de la Muerte Oscura 00:57
• 15 Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land II. Absence 9. Lost Bells (Echo) 01:06
• 16 Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land III. Return 10. God-music 01:35
• 17 Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land III. Return11. Ancient Voices 00:32
• 18 Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land III. Return12. Ancient Voices (Echo) 00:30
• Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land III. Return13. Threnody III:
• 19 Crumb: Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land III. Return13. Threnody III: Night of the Electric Insects 03:25
• Total Runtime 01:10:26

Info for American Portraits

Bringing together touchstones of the American repertoire, American Portraits features some of the most canonical American chamber works, including Samuel Barber’s String Quartet, Op. 11, George Walker’s Lyric for Strings, and George Crumb‘s Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land. The album also spotlights world premiere recordings of two newly commissioned works: 2026 Pulitzer Prize winner Gabriela Lena Frank’s The Edge of Everything: Elegy for Rachel Louise Carson, a tribute to the environmental pioneer, and 2010 Pulitzer Prize and three-time Grammy Award winner Jennifer Higdon’s Steps for Justice, a portrait of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Both works feature narration by NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. As a collection, the works explore a breadth of the American experience and celebrate enduring compositions from the American chamber music canon.

American Portraits opens with Samuel Barber’s 1936 String Quartet, Op. 11, composed while he was a fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Written during this period of study in Europe, the work offers an early portrait of the distinctly American voice Barber cultivated throughout his career, balancing expansive lyricism with moments of dramatic intensity. The piece features the original, four-string version of Barber’s celebrated Adagio for Strings, one of the most celebrated works in the American repertoire.

Reflecting on the life and legacy of American marine biologist and writer Rachel Louise Carson, Gabriela Lena Frank composed The Edge of Everything: Elegy for Rachel Louise Carson. Frank’s work traces the emotional and historical arc of Carson’s life through themes of environmental stewardship, justice, memory, and resilience.

Known for her “sea trilogy”— Under the Sea-Wind, The Sea Around Us, and The Edge of the Sea — Carson became one of America’s foremost science writers, winning a National Book Award for The Sea Around Us. She published much of her early work under the name “R. L. Carson,” navigating the barriers women scientists faced in establishing their authority in a male-dominated field. Her eventual embrace of her full name became an act of reclamation and self-definition. Further embodying Carson’s legacy, Frank’s work features text written by MacArthur Fellow, ornithologist, and author J. Drew Lanham, narrated by NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. A Black American who has written extensively about loving a world from a body that the natural world’s gatekeepers have not always welcomed, Lanham’s words bring the authority of a working scientist and the voice of a poet to this work channeling Carson’s enduring legacy.

The Quartet provides what Frank calls the elegy’s emotional undertow, “the tidal pull that runs beneath Carson’s words.” Conceived with the narrator as a fifth voice in the ensemble, the five voices move “with, against, between, and in spite of one another,” sharing wonder at the natural world, noting humanity’s responsibility to it, and mourning its calamitous changes.

Written in memory of his grandmother, who escaped slavery and remained one of the most important figures in his life, George Walker’s Lyric for Strings is a deeply expressive work of the American string repertoire. Drawing on Walker’s personal history, the work provides a moment of profound reflection at the center of the album.

Jennifer Higdon’s Steps for Justice sets texts by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, her daughter-in-law Patrice Michaels, and Higdon herself. Commissioned by 92Y in New York and Washington Performing Arts for its Fourth Annual Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Concert in Washington, D.C. in April 2026, the work features Nina Totenberg, a longtime friend of Ginsburg’s, as narrator, bringing Ginsburg’s beliefs in equality, compassion, and shared humanity to the forefront.

Higdon remarks, “There are those individuals who go through life breaking down boundaries and working to make the world better for everyone. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was one of those angels. The opportunity to honor her, while shining light on those beliefs that she held as the highest hopes for her fellow citizens, is an aspiration that I hope this piece conveys.”

The album closes with George Crumb‘s Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land, one of the most influential American chamber works of the 20th century. Written in the 1970s, the work reflects on the political turbulence of the late 1960s and the war in Vietnam. Comprising 13 interconnected movements, a number that permeates the score as a symbolic motif, the work transforms the traditional string quartet through amplification, percussion, vocalizations, and extended techniques, resulting in a haunting meditation on war, spirituality, and the journey from despair to redemption.

Pacifica Quartet

Pacifica Quartet
Recognized for its virtuosity, exuberant performance style, and often-daring repertory choices, over the past two decades the Pacifica Quartet has gained international stature as one of the finest chamber ensembles performing today. The Pacifica tours extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia, performing regularly in the world’s major concert halls. Named the quartet-in-residence at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music in March 2012, the Pacifica was also the quartet-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2009 – 2012) – a position that has otherwise been held only by the Guarneri String Quartet – and received the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance.

Formed in 1994, the Pacifica Quartet quickly won chamber music’s top competitions, including the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. In 2002 the ensemble was honored with Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award and the appointment to Lincoln Center’s CMS Two, and in 2006 was awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, becoming only the second chamber ensemble so honored in the Grant’s long history. Also in 2006 the Quartet was featured on the cover of Gramophone and heralded as one of “five new quartets you should know about,” the only American quartet to make the list. And in 2009, the Quartet was named “Ensemble of the Year” by Musical America.

The members of the Pacifica Quartet live in Bloomington, IN, where they serve as quartet-in-residence and full-time faculty members at the Jacobs School of Music. Prior to their appointment, the Quartet was on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana from 2003 to 2012. The Pacifica Quartet also serves as resident performing artist at the University of Chicago.

This album contains no booklet.