Classic CD: Keller Quartet, Cantante e tranquillo

Album cover for Keller Quartet, Cantante e tranquillo.

The title of the Keller Quartet's latest album of recordings made between 1995 and 2012 comes from Beethoven's directive for the Lento Cantante e tranquillo of his final string quartet.

This movement, played twice, with a vibrant intimacy that will have you hovering over the sound, opens and closes the CD, providing emotional pillars for the deeply contemplative music laid out between them.

Such a collection might seem a perilous undertaking to those underwhelmed in the mid 1990s by Deutsche Grammophon's Karajan Adagio album.

However, Cantante e tranquillo is made of sterner stuff. There's no Massenet tear-jerkers; instead, we have the soul-cleansing astringencies of Ligeti and Schnittke.

Two extracts from Bach's The Art of Fugue evoke the sweet sadness of a viol consort and the brutal mid-phrase silence in the composer's final, unfinished fugue is as chilling as any winter blast. Bach is followed by a short Homage to J.S.B. by Gyorgy Kurtag. This fragile, fanciful piece, running at just over a minute, may well entice your finger on to the replay button.

For heavenly stillness, it would be difficult to rival An Autumn Evening by the Russian Alexander Knaifel. Its unruffled calm catches the wistful charm and mysterious tenderness of the sad orphaned Earth that Fyodor Tyutchev describes in his poem that inspired this music.

Although Beethoven and Bach account for well over half of this disc's 64 minutes, Alfred Schnittke provides another spiritual hub with an extract from his 1976 Piano Quintet.

The Russian composer asks for neither "cantante" nor "tranquillo" in this Moderato pastorale, signing off a score written on the death of his mother. Here, we encounter some potent musical hypnotism and, in this performance, the players take more time than some to immerse us in its cool beauties.

Think of it as a soundtrack with no need for an accompanying film. Pianist Alexei Lubimov, with a touch like chiming pearls, dominates, with recurring references to the finale of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. Against this, the magnificent Kellers interrupt with memories of previous movements, catching the concept behind this album, compressed into a 4'22" masterpiece.

Verdict: A great quartet reaps reflective rewards in nostalgic revisiting.