Franck:
String Quartet in D major 1889

Faure:
String Quartet in E minor 1923–4

The great French composers Fauré and Franck have generally been cast as total opposites, but in fact they had much in common. Neither were really men of the theatre, nor were they natural symphonists, nor were they flashy orchestrators in the Berlioz or Rimsky-Korsakov tradition. But both cultivated what the French call ‘intériorité’, which one could translate as ‘intimacy’, though this loses the sense of deep reflection, even of transcendence, immanent in the French term. Finally, as it turned out, the last works of both were string quartets. Recorded together here, these beautiful final works demonstrate a thorough maturity of spirit and talent in both composers.

Franck’s quartet breaks new ground, particularly in the complex structure of the first movement. The discourse is also shot through with sudden silences, as though questioning the propriety of the whole enterprise silences whose force was surely not lost on the young Debussy, who a few years later was to claim silence as one of his most fruitful discoveries. The String Quartet in E minor by Fauré is almost backward-looking in its modal tonality, and a model of ‘intériorité’.

Winner of the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Chamber Music in 2007, the Dante Quartet is known for its imaginative programming and the emotional intensity of its performances. The group was founded in 1995 at the International Musicians’ Seminar at Prussia Cove, Cornwall. This is its first recording for Hyperion.



BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE AWARD WINNER 2009 ; GUARDIAN FIVE TO HEAR; DIAPASON D'OR; CHOC DE MONDE DE LA MUSIQUE

'This is a wonderfully played pairing of perhaps the two greatest of all French string quartets … It is a measure of the outstanding quality of the Dante Quartet that both works are projected as vividly and immediately as they are. There's such a passionate involvement about their playing, such belief in the music's outstanding qualities … It's an outstanding disc' (The Guardian)

'The Dante Quartet's triumph is that it doesn't allow itself to fall into the trap of over-stressing the austerity of Fauré's language, but instead chooses to let his remarkable inventiveness and strength of spirit shine out. Franck's String Quartet in D is also performed with great depth of feeling and sensitivity' (Classic FM Magazine)

'No dithering with the Dante Quartet in their Hyperion debut: they plunge into whatever they play with passion, energy and communal spirit … The Franck dazzles with its boisterous invention; the Fauré cools brows with its thoughtful restraint. To both the players bring the same expertise and vast colour range. And the recording's superb … Don't hestitate' (The Times)

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Recording details: December 2007; Potton Hall, Dunwich, Suffolk, United Kingdom; Produced by Jeremy Hayes; Engineered by Ben Connellan; Release date: August 2008;