String Quartets Nos.1, 2, 3 : Cassatt String Quartet

DAN WELCHER (b.1948)

String Quartet No. 3 'Cassatt'
Introduction: The Bacchante (1876)
At the Opera (1878)
Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun (1909)

String Quartet No. 2 'Harbour Music'

String Quartet No. 1
Harsh, angry
Lonely
Allegretto scherzando
Solemn

Cassatt String Quartet:
Muneko Otani and Jennifer Leshnower - violins
Michiko Oshima - viola
Nicole Johnson - cello

Digirai Recordings: 2007, 2008 New York

Named after the celebrated American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, the Cassatt String Quartet is ideally placed to interpret the music of Dan Welcher, the main theme from whose personable Third String Quartet is based on the artist's name and was written for this outstanding all-female ensemble. The good humored second quartet recalls Welcher's delightful experience of the magnificent harbor for which Sydney, Australia, is world famous, while his first, unnamed, quartet is by turns abrasive, melancholy, tragic, soothing, darkly comic and ultimately victorious in character. Orchestral works by Dan Welcher can be heard on Naxos 8.559287. ( NAXOS )