Search - Leon Kirchner, Boston Composers String Quartet :: Leon Kirchner: The Complete String Quartets

Kirchner won a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize for his Third String Quartet, which combines live players with electronic music in an intellectually and emotionally convincing manner. The Second Quartet is actually a more difficult piece, atonal and challenging but still swept along by its vital, rhythmic drive, which is usually a potent force in Kirchner's music. The First Quartet shows the young composer, in 1949, finding his own voice under the influences of Bartók (whom he quotes) and Schoenberg. This is a fascinating, well-played disc, and it leaves me hungry for more of Kirchner's music as well as some of his phenomenal piano playing. --Leslie Gerber