String Quartets, Op. 18; Nos. 1, 2 & 3

"The playing is highly polished and technically impeccable, phrases tend to be long and tempos correspondingly lively...If you're collecting the Cleveland series, this is a worthy volume." -American Record Guide

The Cleveland Quartet (William Preucil and Peter Salaff, violins; James Dunham, viola, and Paul Katz, cello) is recognized as one of the premiere string quartets of our time, acclaimed for its performances in the world's music capitals and for its outstanding recordings of more than fifty chamber works. In addition to regular tours of the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan, the Quartet has also performed in the Soviet Union, South America, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East. Highlights of previous seasons include nearly thirty complete Beethoven quartet cycles in such cities as New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Tokyo, Paris, London, Rome and Florence; annual appearances at New York's Mostly Mozart Festival; regular performances at prestigious European music festivals including Salzburg, Edinburgh, Lucerne, Berlin and Helsinki; a Presidential Inaugural Concert; and numerous radio and television appearances.

Deeply committed to the performance of new music, the Cleveland Quartet performed the world premiere of a string quartet written for them by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Bernard Rands; the New York premiere of a string quartet by Libby Larsen, also written for them; and a new concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra by Jon Deak, performed with the Rochester Philharmonic.

The Cleveland Quartet's many recordings, comprising a wide range of chamber works on the CBS Masterworks, Pro Arte, Philips, RCA and Telarc labels, have received seven Grammy Award nominations, as well as "Best of the Year" awards from Time and Stereo Review. Among the distinguished artists with whom the Quartet has recorded are Emanuel Ax, Alfred Brendel, Bernard Greenhouse, Yo-Yo Ma, John O'Conor, Richard Stoltzman and Pinchas Zuckerman.

The repertoire performed by the Cleveland Quartet in recent seasons reflects the broad range of their musical interests: it includes works from the central Viennese/German tradition from Haydn to Brahms and music by 20th century masters Schoenberg, Berg, Barber and Prokofiev. Among the prominent contemporary composers who have written especially for the Quartet are John Harbison, Stephen Paulus, Samuel Adler, Morton Feldman, George Perle, Christopher Rouse, Toru Takemitsu and Dan Welcher.

Dedicated teachers as well as performers, the members of the Cleveland Quartet are on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music, where they give instruction in their individual instruments and offer an intensive coaching program for young professional string quartets. Since 1972, they have taught and performed at the Aspen Music festival, where they were co-founders of the Center for Advanced Quartet Studies, and this past summer they were in residence at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival/Yale Summer School of Music and Art. Many of the young ensembles coached by the Cleveland Quartet in these two programs have won prestigious international chamber music awards, including seven Naumburg Foundation Prizes.

The members of the Cleveland Quartet play extraordinary instruments that represent the finest examples of the stringed instrument maker's art: William Preucil, a Stradivarius violin from 1701; Peter Salaff, a J.B. Guadagnini violin from 1783; James Dunham, a Gaspar da Salo viola from 1585, and Paul Katz, an Andrea Guarneri cello from 1669.