Canto Ostinato

Matangi Quartet

Matangi Music / HQ|NORTHSTAR

Catalogue MTM01

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About the Album

[vc_column_text]One of the greatest pieces composed for string quartet is Beethoven’s Op.131. The huge tension and the fact that you know you’re about to embark on an adventure even before the first notes have sounded make this a piece which lets you forget the world around you and transports you to a new one, all at the same time. As far as we are concerned, this adaptation of Canto Ostinato makes it a worthy sibling of that Op. 131. In present times, when everything can be accessed by a few clicks, and in the maze of fast smartphones, pop-up concerts and Twitter compositions, it is Canto Ostinato which offers an escape from the spirit of the times, making every performance exciting and unique for both performer and audience. At the beginning, we are facing a huge blank canvas. Each of us has brought their own set of tools. We know how the finished canvas should be, but we choose new paint and different brushes every time and mix the colours anew. Sometimes for a long time and sometimes very briefly. We are subdued, exuberant, dreamy and now and then a little villainous. Resigned, excited, sweet, ambivalent, manic. Furious, fatuous, provocative, hesitant and maniacal once more. Just as the listener thinks they know how the painting is going to turn out, we cover it in a wash of ice blue, then in white, and then we start again with what seems to be a blank canvas. However, the paint is still wet, and one swipe across the canvas reveals something which we could never have come up with together.
And then... suddenly... it is all gone.

Album tracks