Topic: NEW CDs
Another premiere recording, of Henryk Górecki's String Quartet No. 3, subtitled ... songs are sung and played by the Kronos Quartet, has been on and off the classical chart every couple of weeks since its debut in late March. It is now back on the chart at no. 17. ...CONSUMER INFO Henryk Mikolaj Górecki's String Quartet No. 3, Piesni Spiewaja ("...Songs Are Sung"), Op. 67--like its predecessors--was especially commissioned for and dedicated to the Kronos Quartet, whose impassioned, sympathetic performance burnishes it to a fare-thee-well. Approximately a decade of fits and starts separated the work's completion from its premiere, which finally took place in the composer's native Poland on October 15, 2005. Fans of his elegiac, incongruously popular Third Symphony likely somewhat startled by the spiky, dissonant virility that informs so much of Górecki's output. But the present piece would be an ideal follow-up for admirers of his more mystical, minimalist style.