InfoDad reviews the new David Shifrin recording Spring Forward featuring works by Peter Schickele, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Richard Danielpour performed by the Miró Quartet, Jasper String Quartet, and Dover Quartet:
“David Shifrin’s deeply felt and strong commitment to the new clarinet literature as well as more-classical clarinet works leads him again and again to unearth some gems of modern composition. … Peter Schickele’s Spring Forward (2014) is a pleasant, often bouncy work whose title indicates a somewhat seasonal interest but whose music simply moves along good-naturedly and for the most part with a tonal center. … Richard Danielpour’s two-movement quintet (2015), which bears the title “The Last Jew in Hamadan” … makes repeated forays into Jewish music as well as strongly felt emotional expression. … Shifrin’s sensitive playing suits the music admirably… Aaron Jay Kernis’ Perpetual Chaconne (2012) is a work of a very different sort: an extended single-movement piece of “pure” rather than descriptive music that opens in quiet, rather lyrical sadness and contrasts that feeling with considerably more-anguished and harsher material as the work progresses. … Shifrin offers the same sort of highly committed, first-rate playing that he brings to all the music on this disc; and in all three works, he receives sensitively played backup and cooperation from the musicians who make up three separate string quartets.”
—InfoDad
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