Fred Lerdahl’s Complete String Quartet Cycle Now Available on Bridge

The latest installment of Fred Lerdahl's music from Bridge Records is available this month in Music of Fred Lerdahl, Vol. 3. The recording features all three of the composer’s string quartets, marking the first recording of the complete cycle, performed by the Daedalus Quartet, and is available for pre-order on amazon now. Composed between 1978 and 2008, the quartets were written for the Juilliard, Pro Arte and Daedalus quartets. Lerdahl writes:

The First Quartet takes the form of 15 geometrically expanding variations...Its sequel, the Second Quartet, continues the expansion with two more variations of nine and 13 minutes. The Third Quartet constitutes in its entirety a last expanded variation. At the same time, it interposes reminiscences from the two earlier quartets.

Other works recently made available on commercial recordings include The First Voices, for three singers and large percussion ensemble, on the Naxos record American Music for Percussion 2; and Chasing Goldberg, for piano, on the Tritone Records album 13 Ways of Looking at the Goldberg.

Volume 3 joins Music of Fred Lerdahl, and Music of Fred Lerdahl Vol. 2 in a growing, extensive survey of the composer’s music on Bridge Records, proving a significant addition to the cannon of chamber music recordings.

The Fritz Reiner Professor of Music at Columbia University, Fred Lerdahl is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a recipient of many awards and honors including the Koussevitzky Composition Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Classical Recording Foundation’s Composer of the Year Award. Commissions have come from the Fromm Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Spoleto Festival, National Endowment for the Arts, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and his music has been performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and many more of the world's leading ensembles and institutions.

More on the Bridge recordings can be found at www.bridgerecords.com.

Visit www.fredlerdahl.com for more information on the composer.

Fred Lerdahl
First String Quartet (1978)
21’

Second String Quartet (1982)
22’

Third String Quartet (2008)
21’

The First Voices (2007)
for soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto and eight percussionists

Three Diatonic Studies (2004-09)
for solo piano
9’
I. Chasing Goldberg
II. Cyclic Descent
III. Scalar Rhythms