Andy gives Takacs Assad Labro Five Stars for Sonics and for Music
J and Helen Schlichting, executive producers
“Yarlung Records hits the trifecta–engaging unfamiliar music, committed performances and spectacular sound.”
This release Yarlung Records hits the trifecta—engaging unfamiliar music, committed performances, and spectacular sound. Clarice Assad is a Brazilian-American composer/pianist, who moves effortlessly between classical, jazz, and popular idioms. She accompanies her own scat singing on two selections (Luminous and Milton Nacimento’s Cravo e Canela) while Constellation for violin and piano features a touchingly songful slow movement. Completely different is the slashing, angular Clash for bandoneón and string quartet. Bryce Dessner’s quasi-minimalistic Circles is scored for the same forces, and Julien Labro, the album’s featured bandoneón virtuoso, contributes Meditation No. 1, an eight-minute reverie for this instrumental grouping as well. Kaija Saariaho’s Nocturne, for solo violin, fits the program’s aura of anxious melancholia. The Takács Quartet is approaching their semicentennial, and although only the cellist remains from the original ensemble, the group’s intensity and technical fluency is intact. Yarlung’s sonics are revelatory. Balances are believable, and although the recorded perspective isn’t immediate, Assad’s first vocal entrance on the Nascimento piece made me jump. I listened to the program as a 24/88 WAV file; a DSD version, CD, and vinyl options are also available. AQ
Please also notice the review immediately to the right hand side of the page. In the same issue TL reviews Takács Quartet’s Schubert release on Hyperion. Please see the magazine page up close here and please support The Absolute Sound, one of the finest audio and music magazines in the world.
–Andrew Quint writing in The Absolute Sound, July/August 2024 print issue