Description
Recorded live in Samueli Theater at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, November 3-4, 2015
Executive Producer: Elliot Midwood
Side A
Taught, energetic
Side B
Slowly
Quick, breathless
“Matheson’s String Quartet is an impressive piece of work. Thirty-two minutes long, it is brimming with ideas; the richness of their number is palpable…. The String Quartet is, perhaps first and foremost, beautifully orchestrated, the combination of instruments used to create one wondrous color after another. Motor rhythms and repeated patterns juice forward progress; these ideas move through tonal progressions, reaching plateaus of more static material (at least in the first two movements) – meditative, starry-skied, rapt. The quick finale is a syncopated romp.”
Timothy Mangan, Orange County Register
Yarlung Records –
“The Quartet is an impressive work of about half an hour. Matheson’s ideas keep building and pouring out. His style in all three works, while thoroughly contemporary, is appealing and accessible, without ever coming across as overly ingratiating or dumbed down. As his Violin Concerto aptly demonstrates as well, Matheson has a knack for writing for strings. Matheson combines instruments in a way that gives rise to wonderful colors. Other episodes in the Quartet are motoric and marked by repeating patterns. The results sometimes suggest “Minimalism,” but never obsessively developed or carried to tiring extremes.”
–Uwe Krusch, Pizzicato, Luxembourg
Yarlung Records –
“At 18 minutes the Quartet’s opening movement is the most substantial and ambitious. It begins with a swirling coruscation of sound, persistently driven and underpinned by motoric rhythms. There’s a feel of forward momentum and purposeful direction. In the central section, where the music is more relaxed, each instrument is given the opportunity to state its case. Then the energy returns in the form of declamatory sweeps. The slow movement is intensely lyrical, but the emotion is tinged with melancholy and sadness. At one point it reaches a passionate climax. The finale is, as it states on the tin, ‘Quick, Breathless’. All four players leap into the fray with some high-octane rhetoric. The Color Field Quartet give a deeply committed account.”
–Stephen Greenbank, MusicWeb International, United Kingdom
Yarlung Records –
“Dodge joined three other players from the flexible chamber ensemble Color Field for a scintillating reading of Matheson’s String Quartet. Repeating spiraling patterns superficially suggest minimalist technique; but this is actually music that’s quite traditional in its sense of structure and the passing of time — hyper-alert, focused, and invigorating.”
–Andrew Quint, The Absolute Sound