Credits:

Reto Bieri/Meta4

Description:

Quasi Morendo, the third album in the ECM New Series by the up-and-coming clarinetist, is his 2011 solo clarinet album Contrechant (a collection of works by Carter, Holliger, Eötvösch, Sharino, and Vaidha), This is the third album in Leto Bieri's ECM New Series, following his 2014 album of powerful performances of Galina Ustvolskaya's Clarinet Trio with violinist Patricia Kopanskaya and pianist Markus Hinterhäuser. Contrechant" was widely acclaimed for both the beauty of the Swiss clarinetist's tone and his extraordinary expressiveness, backed by his wide-ranging technique. Quasi Morendo begins with a new exploration of one of the pieces performed on that first album, Salvatore Sciarrino's "Let me die before I wake" (1982). Next, Bieri joins the Finnish Meta Four String Quartet for a deeply interpretive performance of Brahms' Quintet, Op. 115 (1891).Influenced by Brahms' friendship with clarinetist Richard Mühlfeldt, Brahms' quintet sounds freer and more pastoral than his early chamber music, but is still one of his most carefully constructed works. The album concludes with Gérard Pesson's Nebenstuck (1998), a slightly reworked version of Brahms' Ballade, Op.10 No.4. Bieri was born in 1975 in Zug, Switzerland. He grew up inspired by Swiss folk music. He studied with François Benda at the Basel Conservatory and with Charles Neidich at the Juilliard School in New York. Chamber music classes with Gerge Kurtág and Christian Zimmermann, as well as encounters with author Gerhard Meyer and music professor Eberhard Feltz, have clearly influenced Bieri's work. Universal Music/IMS

Tracklisting:

1.Let Me Die Before I Wake for clarinet
2.Quintet in b minor Op.115 for clarinet, two violins, viola and violoncello~Allegro
3.Quintet in b minor Op.115 for clarinet, two violins, viola and violoncello~Adagio
4.Quintet in b minor Op.115 for clarinet, two violins, viola and violoncello~Andantino
5.Quintet in b minor Op.115 for clarinet, two violins, viola and violoncello~Con moto
6.Nebenstuck, Filtrage de la Ballade Opus 10/4 de Johannes Brahms for clarinet and string quartet