Nonesuch レコード& CD

Review: Kronos Quartet has now been active for 50 years and to mark the anniversary Nonesuch is putting out tone of their most acclaimed albums on vinyl for the first time. It comes as the Quartet is on a big 50th anniversary tour and almost 30 years after the original Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass album was first released in 1995. David Harrington and John Sherba play violin, Hank Dutt is on viola and Joan Jeanrenaud plays cello as they perform Glass pieces from the early 80s onwards including five which were actually written specifically for this group. They make for some of the best music the great composer has ever written, if you ask us.

Review: With its iconic and hugely emotive violin main theme presented in a number of iterations set amid a series of electronic moments and moods that would make the great downbeat giants such as David Holmes proud, it's fair to say the soundtrack to Requiem For A Dream is a genuine delight. Or at least it is when heard alone, far from the trauma of the movie's deeply scarring narrative and visuals.

But then this is the legendary Kronos Quartet, one of the finest contemporary ensembles working today which claims a 40-year-plus history having worked with countless classical, pop and electronic talent. Clint Mansell, multi-instrumentalist of Pop Will Eat Itself and latter day composer, is just one of those names, but the results of those combined efforts are among their finest hours of all involved.