Stenhammar: String Quartets Nos. 3-6

"My work demands all my energies, and the rehearsal of Sten’s quartet has gripped me completely. We worked like madmen out of joy in it; I perhaps with more pain than on any other occasion, for I understand the core of this piece so desperately well that I dream about it at night." - Tor Aulin

It was the violinist, string quartet leader, and composer Tor Aulin who raved with such empathy while preparing his friend Wilhelm Stenhammar’s fourth string quartet for performance. Stenhammar unfortunately even today continues to number among the group of those composers whom one might term the »great unknowns«; nearly all the works compromising his rather compact oeuvre are of pronouncedly high quality. Unlike Grieg, Nielsen, and Sibelius, Stenhammar never attained the status of a musical icon in his native country – for political and social reasons Sweden evidently had no need of such an influential personality. On its wonderfully harmonious and homogeneous new Surround recording of Stenhammar’s Quartets Nos. 3-6 the Oslo String Quartet impressively demonstrates that he merits much greater representation in today’s concert world than is currently the case.