From contemporary Russian composer Vladimir Martynov (born in 1946) comes this selection of music for string quartet (augmented by a second cellist for the time-stretching fantasia on Schubert’s unfinished quintet that takes up the middle of the disc), as performed by the still-restless, still-curious Kronos Quartet, perhaps the most venerable chamber ensemble devoted to contemporary music in the world. After passing through a gamut of approaches to composition more or less typical of his avant-garde generation – beginning with orchestral serialism, soon shifting to electronic music, and then, in 1978, even writing a prog-rock opera for a one-off band he’d assembled – Martynov eventually came to his mature style, as embodied by these pieces. They each evince his singularly gorgeous, highly personal take on the current state of “classical” music, and perhaps also on – why not? – the state of civilization itself. The result might be described as the slow-motion dissolution (or disillusion) of High Romanticism – “Der Abschied” is a forty-minute extension of a handful of passages from Mahler – within the disenchanted atmosphere of Modernism. While often more challenging than the so-called Holy Minimalism
of Gorecki or Pärt, Martynov will appeal to many of their fans, although there is nothing churchy about his music’s sad majesty.