118 French String Quartets. Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel

Description

“Placing the musicians around the listener has a very unusual effect, because the music besets your body and binds it; you sit in the middle of the musical action and you are under attack from all sides. You physically feel the vibration because it physically spreads through your body. But that is not all: your ears bathe in a sea of fairy-tale colours of the most sublime culture. […] Thank you, dear Auryns, for this intensity!” (pizzicato)

“[…] this recording by the Auryn Quartet of three French masterworks is extraordinarily lifelike, with a sense of space and spaciousness that I have rarely encountered. The sound is the story. Producer/engineer Andreas Spreer has created an unusual and startling recording perspective, placing the listener in the midst of the quartet. If the imagery is uncomfortable, you could imagine yourself very close to the stage or sitting on the stage close to the players. The recording’s warm ambiance never obscures its pristine clarity, allowing a wealth of details to emerge. Though the actual recording venue is not revealed, it alone could not be responsible for a recording that finds an ideal balance between a live acoustic and lucid transparency.” (Fanfare)

Audiosample (mp3, stereo)