Rejoice! A String Quartet Christmas
Product Details
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
There are, unfortunately, only a handful of truly great holiday CDs for lovers of instrumental classical music. Here's one of them. Violinists Arturo Delmoni and Alexander Romanul join violist Katherine Murdock and cellist Nathaniel Rosen on a blissfully sublime disc of holiday favorites. In addition to the usual suspects ("Joy to the World," "It Came upon a Midnight Clear," "Silent Night"), the string quartet throws some lesser-heard gems into the mix: "The Holly and the Ivy," a hauntingly gorgeous interpretation of "Veni, veni, Emmanuel," and the contemporary chorale piece "Gaudeamus," arranged here for string quartet by composer Antony Hopkins. Throughout, the playing is near perfect, with none of the marketing gloss or sentimental gimmicks found in many holiday CDs. Recorded under audiophile standards, the sound is impeccable and warm. A treat. --Jason Verlinde
Customer Reviews
Beautiful Christmas music, relax and sip the eggnog!
This is a marvelous group of Boston area musicians who have come together and recorded beautiful arrangements of classic Christmas carols. The blending and intonation of this string ensemble is gorgeous!!
background notes
So someone wanted background on the musicians. I can give you some background on the second violinist, Alexander Romanul (you know the one they almost mixed out of this CD). Read it fast before he gets furious with me and tells me to take it down. (Well, I've never actually heard him even raise his voice, but even if he asks me nicely I'll honor his wishes.)
So there's the usual stuff. He was a child prodigy, won the BSO young artists at 13, debuted with some other orchestra at 11 or 12 playing the Mendelsson. Has done lots of solo performances in North America and Europe, played with the BSO a lot of years, yada. yada. A friend of his, who has been concertmaster of a couple New England orchestras once told me, "You understand, don't you, Margaret, that Alexander can really play? It's enough to drive a person completely nuts."
As a young man, he decided to try for the Wieniawski. He locked himself in a room in Germany for 5 months and played scales very slowly without vibrato seeking to play perfectly in tune. He only placed fifth, but the change in him could evidentally be felt and he caused something of a national sensation.
It was then that the process began which he describes as the quest for pure sound, something for which he has sacrificed a great deal. The process has brought him into deep states and he undergoes a constant, tortured struggle to reconcile its lure with the demands of the world. He still sometimes closes himself in a room for long periods of time, coming out only to shower and eat or take an evening stroll.
He claims to have hit a couple home runs in his life, but in my experience, he has never been fully satisfied with anything, so I wouldn't let the fact that he's not satisfied with this CD unsettle you too much. I define a good CD as one which I can listen to four times in a row and then come back to the next day. I think the difference has relatively little to do with the recording quality, the virtuosity, the genre. One can still miss even with technical perfection. It has to do with whether the performers can remain true to the calling and not go up into their heads as a refuge from doubt. I do feel that this music bears on its wings an authentic, "Peace on earth, Goodwill toward men."
Alexander has spent hundreds of hours with my son in tickle fights, swimming in the local reservoir and competing for the best rendition of Disney characters. "Hello, my name is Bruce! I know, why trust a shark?" He reads a lot. Some of his mainstays are Joseph Campbell, Tolkien and Krishnamurti. But at any given moment he might be into an analysis of the stock market or Sir Walter Scott, rammed earth housing, sun spots, Wampanoag Indians or the peculiar behavior of a stray dog in the local police reports. He's articulate and thoughtful and has a sort of zany mischievous sense of humor. He remembers his dreams, likes carnations and Indian food, watches the weather, can identify most of the North American raptors and lepidoptera, plays board games, swims long distances, gets attached to his shirts, makes a mean chocolate chip cookie and drives an old Civic.
A Classical Christmas Classic
When the first String Quartet Christmas CD was released a few years ago, it did not immediately catch my attention, until I was stuck in a major traffic jam a few days before Christmas. WCRB, a classical music station in Boston, often plays what they call "classic clusters" of short relaxing classical pieces and one was a holiday cluster with music from this disk. This particular cluster had selections from this CD. Though horns were honking from impatient drivers behind me, I felt relaxed while listening to this soothing music. I later purchased the recording knowing that it would become a favorite part of my Christmas collection.
The concept of this collection is not all that complex. Christmas carols are arranged for string quartet. Most of the arrangements sound like Christmas music of the great classical composers. It makes for wonderful background music for more sophisticated Christmas get together, or a relaxing collection to listen to at the end of a busy day preparing for the holidays. Ideally I imagine a person putting a few logs on the fire, turning down the lights, putting the disc in the player, and simply enjoying the melodious music of the holiday season.
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