Dante Quartet - Ravel & Debussy: String Quartets

The Dante Quartet continue their award-winning exploration of the French string quartet with this disc which includes two of the greatest works of this genre. Both quartets dazzled and disturbed at their first performances. Debussy�s fantastic, spiralling variations, resisting orthodox �development� of ideas, is described as reminiscent of Monet�s in recording the variations of light on the fa�ade of Rouen Cathedral. Traditionalist commentators were shocked, but the exotic beauty of the writing excited many, including the young Ravel. Ravel�s Quartet is to some extent an hommage to Debussy, but, typically, also a work of startling originality. Also included is Ravel�s Violin Sonata No 2 in G major, an intriguing, jazz-influenced work, energetic but with a dark undertow of pain; written, as Ravel said, with the aim of �exploring the basic incompatibility of violin and piano�.