JURGIS KARNAVIČIUS (1887-1941): String Quartets No. 1, Op. 1 and No. 2, Op. 6 (World Premiere Recordings).

Description: Karnavičius made significant contributions to the cultural life in Lithuania after returning to his home country in the late 1920s. He had been a pupil of Maximilian Steinberg at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, later becoming a professor in his alma mater. During his years in St. Petersburg, the composer wrote four impressive string quartets, filling the chronological and stylistic gap between the quartets of Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. No. 1 (1913) was published by Belaieff and its folkloristic elements bring to mind the late quartets of Dvořák. The Second, written a few years later in 1917 and distributed by Universal Edition Vienna, already shows first signs of a shift towards Expressionism. Vilnius String Quartet.