Gerhard Stabler “Chamber Music” [Koch Schwann]

Handful of Stabler’s chamber works from the late 1980s, played by a variety of all-stars including EM and Arditti Quartet. We could stand to hear more from this composer. I’ll be honest, the whole album stinks of “modern classical” so I fear it won’t find a lot of airtime. But the first two tracks in particular are knockouts

…strike the ear…: Arditti knocks this strings quartet out of the park, quartertones and all, with the writing focused on the quartet as a whole, no individual moments to be found here.

To The Garbagemen of San Francisco: a modern musical postcard of a trip to the city, inspired by being woken by garbage trucks. Spare voices and whistles.

Translations for the other 3 weaker tracks: Warning with Love Song, In a row, Afterquake and Before

-Cujo, KFJC, Aug 2012