Now it is here! The world premier recording of String Quartet #2 by Swedish excentric composer Claude Loyola Allgén - this is music that had an enormous impact on the listeners when it was recently first performed by IORE String Quartet. The same ensemble here presents the exciting piece in a live concert recording in 2004. Most of the musical oevre of Claude Loyola Allgén was unperformed for a very long time, considered "crazy" or "unplayable". When these really serious musicians take care of the complicated score it turns out to be filled with great beauty, fantasm, composer´s skill and sentiment. The newly started IORE String Quartet here does an historical - and artistical - really great deed, indeed! IORE STRING QUARTET / IORE-kvartetten: Joar Skorpen, violin 1 Teo William-Olsson, violin 2 Fredrik Meuller, viola Staffan Cederblom, violoncell

You need Real Audio to listen to this file: Allgén: Allegro elastico Listen to all nosag CDs on the air: "YESS music" with the whole CD-catalogue of nosag records

THE CRITICS:

MusicWeb-International: " Let me say at once that this is intriguing music. The quartet is traditionally divided into four movements, of which the second occupies about half the playing time. The first movement, marked Allegro elastico, is restless, constantly on the move – the question is: where to? One can feel that it moves in circles and so could be described as introspective – music about itself. There are some abrupt pauses, after which the music takes new directions. The rhythmical elements are essential. This is vital music, stylistically sounding like – Claude Loyola Allgén. (---)
As I said, an intriguing composition and not for the faint-hearted. It is atonal and acrimonious, written at a time when Karl-Birger Blomdahl, the leading Swedish modernist and a future co-member to Allgén in the Monday Group, was still composing in a comparatively well-behaved vein. But it is honest, uncompromising, ambiguous and exhausting. I tremble a little at the thought of playing it again, for it is so intense that I get a feeling it will take the life out of me. However it also has a certain magic. (---)
The live-recording is excellent with few extraneous noises, apart from some rustle of music sheets being turned. Allgén has been something of a myth in Swedish contemporary music, although very few have ever heard anything of his music. Inquisitive readers should give it a try. It’s no easy journey. I can’t promise that you will like what you hear but there are rewards to be had. "

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