Berg: String Quartet – Webern: Langsamer Satz – Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2 Heath Quartet

• Alban Berg (1885 - 1935): String Quartet, Op. 3:
• 1Berg: String Quartet, Op. 3: I. Langsam10:16
• 2Berg: String Quartet, Op. 3: II. Massige Viertel10:46
• Anton Webern (1883 - 1945): Langsamer Satz:
• 3Webern: Langsamer Satz09:06
• Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951):String Quaret No. 2, Op. 10:
• 4Schoenberg: String Quaret No. 2, Op. 10: I. Mässig06:51
• 5Schoenberg: String Quaret No. 2, Op. 10: II. Sehr rasch07:16
• 6Schoenberg: String Quaret No. 2, Op. 10: III. Langsam, 'Litanei'05:55
• 7Schoenberg: String Quaret No. 2, Op. 10: IV. Sehr langsam, 'Entrückung'11:52
• Total Runtime01:02:02

Info for Berg: String Quartet – Webern: Langsamer Satz – Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2

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 album 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.

The charismatic and sought-after Heath String Quartet won the 2016 Gramophone Chamber Award for their recording of the complete quartets of Sir Michael Tippett, and in 2013 became the first ensemble in 15 years to win the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artists Award. Formed in Manches- ter in 2002 they were selected for representation by YCAT, awarded a Borletti-Buitoni Special Ensemble Scholarship and won the Ensemble Prize at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Equally at home on the concert and opera stages, Carolyn Sampson has enjoyed notable successes in the UK as well as throughout Europe and the US. Carolyn has released multi award-winning discs for multiple record labels including BIS, Decca, Harmonia Mundi, and Hyperion, receiving accolades in- cluding the Choc de l’Année Classica, Gramophone Magazine Editor’s Choice, BBC Music Magazine’s “Record of the Month”, an ECHO Award, and a Diapason D’or.

Heath Quartet
Carolyn Sampson, soprano

Heath Quartet
The dynamic and charismatic Heath Quartet are fast earning a reputation as one of the most exciting British chamber ensembles of the moment. In May 2013 they became the first ensemble in 15 years to win the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artists Award. Formed in 2002 at the Royal Northern College of Music they were selected for representation by YCAT, were awarded a Borletti-Buitoni Special Ensemble Scholarship and in 2012 won Ensemble Prize at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Their recording of Tippett’s string quartets (Wigmore Live) received widespread acclaim and won the 2016 GRAMOPHONE Chamber Disk of the Year. 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. The Quartet’s complete Bartók cycle (recorded live at the Wigmore Hall) is due for release in May 2017. Future highlights also include a return to the Berlin Konzerthaus, performances in Austria with Michael Collins, 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.

Notable performances of the previous seasons have included a complete Beethoven Cycle at Kilkenny Festival, a John Tavener premiere at the BBC Proms, concerts at the Beethovenfest Bonn, Mecklenburgh-Vorpommern Festival, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and their debuts at the Musée d’Orsay and Louvre Auditorium in Paris. Regular visitors to the United States the quartet also recently made their debut in New York at both Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Centre, and continue their residence at Middlebury College, Vermont. In the UK they have also performed at the Barbican, Bridgewater Hall, Sage Gateshead, Perth Concert Hall and Queen’s Hall Edinburgh. And in Europe they have appeared at the Kissingen Winterzauber and Schwetzinger Festivals as well as deSingel Arts Centre in Antwerp, Vara Konserthus in Sweden, Berlin Konzerthaus, Esterházy Palace, and the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna.

The Heath Quartet regularly enjoy working with a host of talented collaborators including Anna Caterina Antonacci, James Baillieu, Ian Bostridge, Adrian Brendel, Michael Collins, Colin Currie, Stephen Hough, Richard Lester, Aleksandar Madzar, Anthony Marwood, Hannes Minnaar, Mark Padmore, Lawrence Power, Carolyn Sampson, plus even venturing into the world of jazz with a ‘Wigmore Late’ concert together with saxophonist Trish Clowes and pianist Gwilym Simcock.

Strong exponents of contemporary music, the Quartet have also worked with several leading composers including Hans Abrahamsen, Louis Andriessen, Brett Dean, Anthony Gilbert, Sofia Gubaidulina, Steve Mackey. They took part in the European première of Steve Mackey’s ‘Gaggle and Flock’ for string octet, the world première of John Musto’s ‘Another Place’ with Carolyn Sampson at the Wigmore Hall

The Heath Quartet members are teaching staff at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Booklet for Berg: String Quartet – Webern: Langsamer Satz – Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2