SKU: FG.55011-498-2

ISBN 9790550114982.

Kimmo Hakola's String Quartet No. 4 op. 95 (2016) was commissioned by the Kimito Island Music Finland and it's dedicated to the Meta4 Quartet. In composer's words, it is the floundering, playful, if necessary defiantly dramatic, surprising, capricious and unrestrained tour de force of a youthful entity.Kimmo Hakola has gone through a number of styles and influences in his career as a composer, his idiom expanding at times to embrace Romanticism, Orientalism and klezmer. He has attained international recognition with an output that spans various genres from intimate solo works to full-length operas such as La Fenice (2011) commissioned by the Savonlinna Opera Festival. Many of his works are expansive and epic: his Piano Concerto (1996), for instance, clocks in at 55 minutes. Hakola says that he sees music as drama. His dramas explore almost Shakespearean extremes, from moments of raging 'sound and fury' and violent battles to quiet moments of meditation and heart-rending monologues.

SKU: SU.29120070

String Quartet No. 3 is in one continuous movement and represents some harmonic and structural experimentation by the composer. The work plays out a bit like a tone poem for string quartet. Mason says This work blends tonal, polytonal and atonal material. My goal was to create new sounds but with a driving suspense and energy from the very first chords to the very end to take the listener on a kind of cosmic tour to different worlds of mystery, longing, warmth, and even triumph. This piece is suggested for advanced level players. YouTube link with the Lyris Quartet performing this work:: 2 vn, vla, vcl Duration: 14' Composed: 2021 Published by: Todd Mason.